Elizabeth Lee Taylor, 33 formerly of Centreville, MD, entered a guilty plea to embezzlement in the Queen Anne’s County Circuit Court on 8/25/20 stemming from an investigation jointly conducted by the Queen Anne’s County Sheriff’s Office and the State’s Attorney’s Office. Taylor was subsequently sentenced to 1 year in jail, with all suspended, but one weekend of active incarceration at the Queen Anne’s County Detention Center.

Taylor worked as an office manger at a local plumbing company and part of her employment responsibilities was the management of company funds.  During a tax preparation audit by the company’s accountant, it was determined that Taylor had issued herself numerous checks from the company account.  Taylor alleged that the checks, totaling in excess of $36,000, were a loan by the owner from April through November of 2018.  The investigation determined that Taylor would request a loan from the owner, which would be granted, but would then manipulate company records to make it appear that the previous loan had been paid back to the company in full. These fraudulent records would be provided to the owner to show repayment of the previous loan and Taylor would then request another loan from the owner.  Taylor continued this scheme several times over an eight month period.  Company records also showed Taylor had issued herself numerous checks that were outside the loan scheme.

In additional to the jail sentence, Taylor was ordered to pay restitution to the company for the money stolen and was placed on 3 years of probation.

Mr. Lance Richardson, State’s Attorney, prosecuted this case.