A Maple Grove woman has been charged for embezzling roughly $1.7 million from her former employer, Reliable Medical Supply Co., over a span of ten years.
 
Court filings indicate Stephanie Ranee Davis, 37, who was an accounts payable clerk for the Brooklyn Park-based medical supply company, was writing about four checks a month to herself for amounts between $4,000 and $9,500.
 
To disguise her actions, Davis set up fictitious vendors in the company’s payable system with names that were nearly identical to its approved vendors, the complaint said. Allegedly, Davis would write a check payable to herself, remove it from the batch signed by the company’s CEO, forge the CEO’s signature, and deposit the company check into her bank account.
 
Court documents indicate Davis would then attribute the stolen funds to a fictitious vendor and turn off (or hide) the fake profiles in the payable system.
 
Money acquired through Davis’s scheme, the complaint said, was used to purchase or make mortgage payments on eight properties, buy two Ford vehicles, a pontoon boat, snowmobiles and other items.
 
After Davis was fired, officials with Reliable Medical Supply told police they spotted Davis and her husband removing snowmobiles, boats and cars from their house.
 
“This was a sophisticated scheme carried out by a trusted employee,” said Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman in a statement. “We will work to convict her, get her some prison time and push for restitution for the company.”
 
Davis will face 10 counts of theft-by-swindle during her first court appearance, which is scheduled for March 22.