Woman Bilks $800,000 From Defunct School

A woman who formerly worked as a supervisor in the accounts payable department of the now-defunct Drake Business School has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $800,000 from the institution.
The defendant allegedly fraudulently negotiated more than 200 checks made out by two of the school’s former CEOs and unlawfully retained the proceeds.
District Attorney Richard A. Brown said, &#8220A once trusted employee, the defendant used her position to unjustly enrich herself. Her conduct represents a gross betrayal of the confidence that school management had in her. In addition to the lengthy prison term that she will likely serve, she will be required to pay back every cent that she stole.”
The defendant has been identified as Angela Sugrim, 30, of 109-33 112th Street in Richmond Hill. She pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny and violation of tax law 1804b (false returns; personal income and earnings taxes) before Queens Supreme Court Justice Pauline Mullings who indicated that she would likely sentence the defendant to a term of three to nine years in prison at sentencing on January 16, 2007.
Sugrim, who agreed to make full restitution of the embezzled funds, will make a lump sum payment of approximately $320,000 at sentencing and sign a confession of judgment for the remaining balance.
In pleading guilty, the defendant admitted that, between August 1998 and March 2004 she fraudulently negotiated 203 checks, totaling $813,687, made out on Drake Business School accounts which were then deposited into bank accounts that she controlled.  
The account records for R&A Enterprises, LLC, a business account maintained at JP Morgan Chase Bank,  for which the defendant is president and sole signatory, indicate deposits over a 16-month period of 71 checks made out on Drake Business School accounts where the purported signers were the school’s chief executive officers.
Drake Business School was located at 3203 Steinway Street in Astoria. The school offered degree programs in accounting and information processing, among others.  It ceased  operation in June 2004 after filing for bankruptcy and its CEO, David Hart, was shot and disabled.
At the time, Hart had been conducting an audit of the school in an attempt to bring the school back into fiscal health.