Polson woman pleads guilty to embezzlement

POLSON — A 60-year-old Polson woman pleaded guilty to the charges against her for embezzling more than $5,000 from a local business she was employed by during 2008 in district court last week.

Francine Wood admitted to two counts of felony theft in a May 7 hearing before Judge Deborah Kim Christopher.

According to court documents including a police affidavit, the local woman was hired on in March 2008 as a bookkeeper with payroll duties at Montana Long Guns Inc. in Polson for an agreed upon pay rate of $13 per hour. For nearly the first three months of  employment, Wood paid herself $15 per hour. Then in June, she decided to give herself another unauthorized pay raise of $3 per hour to $18 per hour — $5 per hour over her determined wage rate. This amount of overpay added to approximately $3,800 through her termination in September 2008.

The affidavit also stated that during this time the defendant wrote several checks to a fictional company “H.W.S.,” which she made up and told employers was a supply company. Those checks went into the account, which Wood then used to pay her own personal bills. The amount of check funds written to the account added up to approximately $1,500, bringing her heist total to $5,300.

The business owners notified Wood that she would be laid off due to financial difficulties on Sept. 3. On Sept. 16, she was interviewed by Lake County Sheriff’s Detective Tara Ewers and admitted to the embezzlement, adding that she “just wanted to admit to taking the money and get it all over with.”

But admitting to white collar crime is nothing to overlook, as Wood faces a cumulative maximum possible punishment of 20 years in prison and $100,000 in fines for her thievery.

A sentencing hearing in this case has been set for July 2 at 9 a.m.