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July
31, 2007
Accounts manager for senior living center charged with
embezzling
The accounts manager for a West Boca Raton senior living center
has been arrested for embezzling more than $40,000 from that
facility, said the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Misty Lynn Vancel, 39, of 6585 Sommerset Drive, Boca Raton, was
arrested July 26 following a probe by the PBSO’s Special
Investigations Division, Financial Crimes Unit, said the report.
Investigators said the woman allegedly wrote checks to herself
“to support her gambling problem.” Between March and December
2006, the report says, she “wrote herself 61 different checks
ranging in size from $145 to $2,000 – for a total of
$40,101.40.”
She was identified as the accounts manager for the Sunrise
Senior Citizens Living Facility at 6342 Via De Sonrisa Del Sur
in West Boca Raton.
Gambling Woes
The PBSO report quotes Vancel as saying she has “a severe
gambling problem” and that she used the money from Sunrise
Senior Living Center to either play slot machines at the Indian
Casino in Davie or to purchase large quantities of lottery
tickets in the Boca Raton area.
PBSO said the alleged embezzlement was not discovered “until one
of the senior citizens living at facility “started receiving
late notices that her bills were not being paid.
Vancel was booked into the county jail on one count of grand
theft, a second-degree felony, police said.
Lawsuit Filed
The accountant isn’t the first official of a large residential
center to be investigated for alleged misappropriation of funds.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office has also had Betty
Marshall under scrutiny for allegedly taking money while she was
president of the property owners’ association at the Boca Rio
Townhouse complex in West Boca.
Marshall has moved out of her home at the development and
returned to Hershey, Pa., where she currently lives, according
to Leah Mayersohn, whose law firm, Mayersohn Law Group,
represents her.
Mayersohn told the Boca Raton News that no charges have been
filed against her client. However, the Boca Rio Townhouse
Association has filed a civil suit alleging that “Betty Marshall
and Mike Addessi have misappropriated, converted and received
the benefits of the association’s funds in excess of $610,070,”
the lawsuit says.
Mayersohn said the lawsuit “is pending.”
As to the situation with Vancel, PBSO said when one of the
residents complained about getting a notice about a past-due
payment, she brought her cancelled check to the office. It was
determined that it was deposited in an account for holiday
bonuses for employees. Police said Vancel then wrote checks from
that account to herself and cashed them.
Sheriff’s investigators said Vancel told them she wrote a small
check in March 2006 for gambling. And when no one seemed to
notice, she wrote more, the report says.
She reportedly told police she hoped to win money through
gambling to pay back the living center’s account, but “she
continually lost.”
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