Tyler

By CASEY KNAUPP
Staff Writer

Laura Ruth Greenlee was sentenced to two years in federal prison Thursday for swindling more than $500,000 from her longtime employer, a Tyler health care company.

The 40-year-old woman claimed she gave a lot of the money to charity.

Ms. Greenlee pleaded guilty to embezzling the money from the East Texas Laser Eye Center from January 2000 through January 2005.

The surgical center is jointly owned by physicians of DeHaven Eye Clinic and Eye Care Association of Tyler and was used by those doctors for surgical procedures. Ms. Greenlee began working as the office administrator on Sept. 1, 1998, and was employed there until she resigned in March 2005.

In U.S. District Judge Michael Schneider's court, Ms. Greenlee apologized to the doctors, family and staff at the laser center and to the court and her family. She said she is a supervisor for customer service at a company she has been working at now for the last two years. She asked that she be placed on probation instead of prison so she could begin paying back her debt.

"What I did was wrong and if I could change my actions I would," she said crying.

Defense attorney Matt Flanery asked the judge to sentence her below the recommended two-year prison sentence, which he said was "unduly harsh." He said Ms. Greenlee's daughter has medical problems and a learning disability and, if put on probation, she could continue to care for her and pay the restitution. He said it was her first and last run-in with the law.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Jackson said two people from the eye center were in court but did not wish to make a statement. He said she was a trusted employee who started stealing small checks, then progressed to larger checks and credit card transactions that totaled more than $500,000. Jackson said she needed to be punished for her conduct and prison time would be appropriate.

Schneider asked the defendant what she did with the money she stole.

Ms. Greenlee said she spent it on bills, family needs and gave a lot of it away to charities and people in need. When asked how much and to whom she gave the funds away, she accounted for about $100,000.

"If someone was in need I gave," she said.

When asked by the judge what she bought for herself with the money, she said she didn't keep a running tab of what she spent the money on and had nothing to show for it.

The judge then asked her if she had some of it stashed away.

"I don't know where it all went but I don't have it stashed away �," Ms. Greenlee said.

The judge said he didn't recall ever giving probation to someone who stole from their employer. He said he also couldn't recall a case where so much money was involved and so much money was unaccounted for.

Schneider ordered her to pay $526,684 in restitution to the victims and undergo an inmate financial responsibility program while in prison. He said Ms. Greenlee, who has remained out of jail on bond, could voluntarily surrender to prison Nov. 3 to begin serving her sentence.

The defendant was usually the only one present at the East Texas Laser Eye Center unless procedures were being performed there.

"I had authority to prepare payment checks for vendors but I did not have signature authority," she said in court documents, adding that she was to prepare the checks, have one of four authorized people sign them and then mail them to the vendors.

She began embezzling money from the center by recording a payment in a ledger as a payment to a vendor but she wrote the check to herself or used it to make some other type of personal payment, according to court documents. Ms. Greenlee admitted she also recorded checks written to herself as bonuses or the selling back of vacation time, she said, although she was not authorized to do so.

Another way Ms. Greenlee stole funds from the center was to record payments for a certain amount to a vendor with one check, then take half of the recorded amount and use the next check to make a personal payment and void the transaction.