By DAN CROWLEY
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — Shortly before his company was to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service in 2010, SealRyt Corp. president Mark Wilkinson’s longtime bookkeeper, Lori Towne, walked into his office in tears and confessed to stealing thousands of dollars from the company, Wilkinson told jurors in Hampshire Superior Court on Wednesday.
“She told me she had stolen from the company and wanted me to know about it,” Wilkinson testified under questioning by Assistant Northwestern District Attorney Jayme A. Parent. “I asked her how … I asked her how she did it, and she told me.”
In her opening statement Wednesday, one of Towne’s defense attorneys — Rachel Lynn Weber of the Committee for Public Counsel Services — told the jury that Towne did not steal company money. Instead, Weber said, Towne, formerly known as Lori Chaffee, enjoyed “special treatment” by Wilkinson that included his permission to use company checks to make payments for credit cards and other personal expenses.
Wilkinson was the first and only witness to take the stand Wednesday in the embezzlement trial of Towne, 51, of Westhampton, who was charged earlier this year and pleaded not guilty to six counts each of larceny over $250 by single scheme, check forgery, and uttering false checks as well as a single count of embezzlement by broker.
Prosecutors allege that between 2002 and 2010 Towne stole more than $200,000 from Wilkinson’s Westfield-based company, formerly located in Easthampton, using company checks to pay three personal credit card accounts, personal car insurance and phone bills, and herself.
Wilkinson, of Huntington, spent the entire day on the stand, where Parent presented him with more than 200 company checks paid to what prosecutors allege were Towne’s personal accounts. He was asked to verify whether he authorized those payments. In each case, over the course of hours, Wilkinson said he did not authorize use of the checks — the vast majority of which carried his stamped signature and Towne’s handwritten signature.
In her opening statement, though, Weber raised questions about whether the payments had Wilkinson’s approval.
“The question is, was she making these payments with or without the permission of her boss?” Weber told jurors. “Was she stealing money or was she doing what she was told to do?”
Weber said Wilkinson had “tricked” Towne into signing a document attesting to the alleged theft of company funds, which he had given Towne permission to use.
“Mr. Wilkinson was involved in the bookkeeping,” Weber said. “He knew what was going on.”
Wilkinson told no one immediately about Towne’s alleged confession, which occurred in SealRyt’s former Easthampton offices, nor did he immediately terminate Towne’s employment.
Asked why he took no immediate action, he replied: “It’s the way I deal with crises. Compartmentalize, understand the full scope of the problem before I do anything.”
Wilkinson testified that he did take away his signature stamp from Towne, and asked her not to make any additional monetary transfers. He later hired a forensic accountant to independently review the company’s financial records. That information was used in a police investigation of the case.
“We were facing an audit,” he said of his decision not to terminate Town’s employment. “She was the only one who had an understanding and knowledge of all the financial details the IRS might want. This is an individual I relied on totally for certain functions. I had no idea how long the audit was going to last. I had no choice but to keep her on.”
Wilkinson ultimately fired Towne in May 2011 — an action taken in the presence of a lawyer, two minority shareholders, and his son, who also was a company employee, he said.
The trial before Judge Mary-Lou Rup is scheduled to resume Thursday morning.
Dan Crowley can be reached at [email protected].
