Moses Lake bookkeeper sentenced for forgery

EPHRATA — A Moses Lake bookkeeper was sentenced to roughly a year in prison for stealing $189,564 from her employer over the course of three years.

Karen Ann Harvill, 51, pleaded guilty to seven counts of forgery in Grant County Superior Court. The original charge of theft in the first degree was dropped as part of the plea agreement.

Grant County Superior Court Judge Evan Sperline followed the prosecutor’s recommendation, sentencing Harvill to a year and a month, according to court records. The sentencing range for Harvill’s crimes is a year to a year and two months.

The Total Employment and Management office manager learned about the theft when a client called. When the office manager searched for an answer she noticed discrepancies. Investigating further, she discovered Harvill wrote 191 checks to herself from the company’s payroll account between Aug. 2006 and July 2009, according to a Moses Lake police report.

When police asked why the theft wasn’t discovered sooner, the officer manager explained Harvill was responsible for reconciling the account and large amounts of money that flowed through it daily.

Harvill admitted to police she wrote the checks, saying her husband left her a large amount of money when he died and she got used to having money. Also, she stopped getting social security payments when her daughter turned 18.