SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah, Jan. 23, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — A Salt Lake City office manager was arrested Wednesday after allegedly charging more than $100,000 to her employer’s credit cards for her own purchases.
A probable cause statement from the 3rd District Court of Salt Lake County said Jennifer Turton, 43, is facing one charge of theft, a second-degree felony, eight charges of communications fraud ($1,500 or more, but less $5,000), a third-degree felony and one charge of communications fraud ($500 or more, but less than $1,500), a class A misdemeanor.
Turton was hired as the office manager of an engineering firm in Salt Lake City, the statement said.
“A certified public accountant was performing an audit when they noticed Jennifer had issued two checks for herself in the same pay period and deleted the duplicate check in their QuickBooks software,” the statement said. “The owner of the company decided to review his credit card records and found hundreds of unauthorized charges during Jennifer Turton’s employment.”
Turton was in charge of using the company credit cards to purchase office supplies and pay for online subscriptions like Adobe and Dropbox, the statement said. She was also responsible for keeping those receipts and turning them in monthly to account for money spent on the company credit cards.
“Monthly, Jennifer would spends hundreds to thousands of dollars every month on personal purchases,” the statement said. “These charges included paying her personal car insurance, chiropractor, dentist visits, etc. with the company credit card.”
Turton would report her spending monthly to the company and provide receipts from the legitimate business purchases, the statement said. She would hide her personal purchases in a subscription and dues category. The alleged fraud occurred for approximately two-and-a-half years.
The business owner estimates more than $100,000 was charged to the business credit cards. A subpoena of Turton’s insurance records show she used the company credit cards to pay for her personal auto insurance for a total of $27,956. She used the company credit card to pay for dental procedures that cost more than $8,000, the statement said.
Turton was arrested Wednesday morning and transported to the Salt Lake County Jail with her bail set at $10,000.
