SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A former employee of University Plaza Hotel and Convention Center in Springfield pleaded guilty in federal court on Wednesday for stealing nearly $170,000 from the hotel. Janet Mosier, 47, of Springfield, waived her right to a grand jury indictment and pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate James England to a federal information that charges her with wire fraud.
Mosier, director of accounting services at University Plaza, admitted she engaged in a scheme to defraud her employer from January 2003 to October 2010. Mosier stole funds from the University Plaza petty cash account by falsely reporting inflated amounts of petty cash spent, and diverting the excess to her own bank account. In this manner, Mosier admitted, she stole $169,864 from her employer.
Over the years, Mosier submitted receipts from her personal expenses, and receipts obtained from family members, to support the fraudulently inflated reports of petty cash outlays. Many receipts, which Mosier altered by removing transaction dates, were used multiple times. Mosier submitted one such receipt, actually for her sister’s dental expenses, 30 times over the course of three and a half years.
