by Mike Donoghue

BURLINGTON — The former bookkeeper at a Windsor County towing company has been placed on federal probation for two years for her part in a wire fraud scheme that added at least $75,000 in company funds to her paychecks, records show.

Chelsea Sunn, 32, of Hartford will have to pay back the $75,000 to Blakeman’s Towing & Recovery, Judge William K. Sessions III said. 

Sunn admitted she submitted false payroll reports between at least December 2018 and until at least March 2020 to Blakeman’s when it was located in South Royalton, court records show.

The owner, Kyle Blakeman, had said when she was charged in court last August that his company lost between $90,000 and $125,000 by her falsely inflating her work hours.

The company, which was well known throughout Windsor County for its recovery service, relocated to Tunbridge to stay in business, he said. Her duties included both payroll and billing for Blakeman’s, a 15-year-old company.

“The fraud has caused significant financial hardship for a business that had no insurance for this kind of malfeasance,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples said in his sentencing memo.

“It has been extremely tough on the business,” Blakeman said in a newspaper interview after the arraignment.

The U.S. Secret Service in Burlington investigated Sunn, who also is known as Chelsea Roy.

Waples said Blakeman was not interested in having Sunn go to federal prison as much as getting fully reimbursed for the stolen money.

Waples noted the federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory, had calculated a prison term between 10 and 16 months.  However, Waples said a long probation period would help ensure repayment.

Sunn was a trusted employee and was allowed to work from home without full oversight, Waples said.  She committed the fraud over the Internet and it resulted in inflated direct deposits being put into her bank account, U.S. District Court records show.

The defense maintained Sunn is well-liked and noted Dartmouth College presented her an Award for Excellence in February 2022 for her work in the Undergraduate Dean’s Office after joining the institution in early 2021. The defense included a picture of the engraved glass award and certificate. 

She later moved to Facilities Operations Management office at Dartmouth, but Sunn later lost that job after the college learned she had pleaded guilty to the felony charge, court records show.

Sunn is taking online college classes and had a 4.0 average in the last semester, defense lawyer David V. Kirby said.

Kirby, a former U.S. Attorney in Vermont, said he had proposed deferring criminal prosecution so Sunn could keep her career at Dartmouth, which provided her with a good living.

He noted the Dartmouth job included health benefits for her and two of her three children and a quicker chance to pay the restitution compared to the subsequent menial jobs, including cleaning homes, she has held.

Kirby said a prison term also would mean the two children would end up fulltime with their father, instead of halftime.

Judge Sessions mandated Sunn pay 10 percent of her gross monthly income as restitution until her obligation is paid in full.  She must notify the court of any material changes in her economic circumstances that might impact on her ability pay. 

Sunn has been free on conditions since her arraignment last August.  The conditions restricted her travel to Vermont, New Hampshire and New York, where her husband, Josh Sunn, is known as a dirt track auto racer.  He does the circuit in the Northeast, including at Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford.

Her mother Betty Ashline of Hartland offered in a letter to the court to go to prison for her daughter so she could stay with her children.  Sunn’s stepfather, Randy Ashline also wrote a letter.

Sunn had several other supportive letters submitted from friends in Woodstock, Hartford, East Thetford and Springfield.

Sunn was hired as a fulltime office worker in 2016 but later converted to part-time employment, records show. Sunn was paid on an hourly basis that included time-and-one-half pay for any overtime work claimed on her timecard, court records show.