A 45-year-old woman from Kent, Washington, was handed an additional year in federal prison after being convicted of embezzling funds from her employer while already awaiting sentencing for a previous multi-million-dollar fraud, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. Christin Guillory, previously sentenced for swindling over $2.5 million from an Everett manufacturing firm, committed further theft at her subsequent job by deceptively taking tens of thousands of dollars—this behavior persisted up until she began her initial sentence.
The situation escalated when Guillory neglected to obey a court order which mandated her to disclose her ongoing legal troubles to her new employer, Guillory not only kept silent about her prior embezzlement case but also provided the probation office with a fabricated email, reinforcing the lie she had been terminated because of revealing the pending conviction, an oversight that enabled her to continue her fraudulent activities unabated. U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez conveyed the weight of Guillory's dishonesty in a remark cited in the U.S. Attorney's Office statement: "You lied to the court while the court was trying to determine if you were a danger to the community. . . . You are responsible for the actions you took, and those actions have consequences."
According to information released by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Guillory deployed various tactics to redirect company funds to herself between January and August 2023, resulting in the theft of an approximate $60,000; it included check alterations, payroll manipulations, and check-writing directly to herself. Guillory's deception came to light when she stopped coming to work without prior notification, prompting her employer to investigate her absence, leading to her prior criminal conduct's discovery.
In recommending the additional one year of imprisonment, prosecutors underscored the severity of Guillory's actions, stating, "Guillory exploited her position of trust by secretly funneling tens of thousands of dollars to herself and then covering it up," acknowledged the duplicity "was particularly egregious because, at the time she was stealing from Victim 2, she was being prosecuted for (and supposedly had accepted responsibility for) the exact same type of conduct that she continued to engage in," as mentioned in the U.S. Attorney's Office website. The damaged company managed to reverse some fraudulent transactions, though it is still owed $42,000, added to the $2,536,086 restitution Guillory owes the Everett company, along with $590,850 due to the U.S. Treasury for tax evasion on the stolen funds.
The FBI, Internal Revenue Service: Criminal Investigation (IRS:CI), and U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services conducted the investigation leading to both cases against Guillory, as reported by Assistant United States Attorney Seth Wilkinson, who is also prosecuting the cases.
