A former employee at a Connecticut assisted living facility has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for multiple and complex fraud schemes at at least three businesses, according to federal authorities.
Marlenin Vito 45, formerly of Waterbury, but now living in New York City, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver in Hartford to a total of 41 months in prison and three years of supervised release for the fraud schemes, according to federal authorities.
Authorities, citing court documents and statements made in court, said Vito worked as Medicaid Coordinator at an unidentified assisted living facility, called company A, which is in Stamford and her job included “assisting the residents in applying for nursing home level Medicaid reimbursements, monitoring the residents’ patient trust accounts, and ensuring compliance with Medicaid regulations.”
“She was also responsible for keeping journal entries for the residents’ trust accounts and to credit their accounts when funds were received, and for debiting patient accounts when payments were made on behalf of the residents or when cash was given to residents for incidental expenses,” authorities said in a statement.
However, between about December 2019 and May 2021, Vito “defrauded Company A and its residents by generating checks from Company A’s system, forging a fellow employee’s signature on the checks, negotiating the fraudulent checks purportedly to give the cash proceeds to certain residents, and keeping the cash for her own use,” authorities said.
She then made “false entries into Company A’s accounting ledger by debiting the fraudulently obtained cash from the residents’ respective trust accounts. Many of the residents were not healthy enough or mentally capable of tracking their own expenses or monitoring the balances of their own trust accounts.”
Authorities said in some cases, Vito cancelled “residents’ supplemental health insurance coverage, but continued to deduct funds from the trust accounts and took the funds for herself.” Further, when some residents’ trust accounts were credited with certain stimulus payments, she “took the funds for herself and then debited the residents’ accounts at a rate of approximately $60 a day until the stimulus funds were depleted.”
She fraudulently used about 500 checks, netting her an estimated $310,820, authorities said, and if confronted by family members of some residents, she “created and provided to those family members false account statements that misrepresented the balances in the residents’ trust accounts,” authorities said.
After she was terminated by that company, Vito worked as a bookkeeper and scheduler at an alarm company, called company B, in White Plains, New York. “Vito stole from the company by making false representations about overtime for herself and her daughter, and by using company funds to order more than $10,000 worth of products to be delivered to her Waterbury residence,” authorities said. Company B was defrauded of about $23,558.
Fired by company B, Vito worked as a bookkeeper at a law firm in Hartford and took fraudulently generated checks drawn on the firm’s account and issued as “petty cash,” and forged the signature of an authorized employee on the checks, cashed the checks, and kept the funds for herself, authorities said. The firm lost about $27,179, authorities said.
Vito pleaded guilty to wire fraud in June. Oliver ordered Vito to pay full restitution.
Vito, who is free on a $25,000 bond and living in the Bronx, New York, must report to prison on October 17, authorities said. She also has pending state cases in New York, where it is alleged that she embezzled about $100,000 from a small business in Brewster, New York, and in Connecticut, where she is alleged to stolen from an employer in Ridgefield, authorities said.