$1.2M theft gets Lynner five years

SALEM – A Lynn woman who stole $1.2 million from her Ipswich employer to finance a high-end lifestyle of travel, home décor, designer clothes and luxury goods will be spending at least five years behind bars and was ordered to pay $500,000 in restitution.Tracy Sutley, 40, of 20 Isabella St., changed her plea to guilty Thursday afternoon in Salem Superior Court after working out a plea deal with the court.She confessed to 16 charges that included 13 counts of larceny over $250, two counts of uttering a false check as well as a single count of making false entries into corporation books stemming from a series of schemes in which she swindled her employer, Weir Valves and Controls out of $1.2 million from 2001 to September 2008.She was sentenced to serve not less than five years and not more than six years in state prison by Judge Timothy Q. Feeley. Her punishment will be served at Framingham Prison for Women.When Sutley is released from prison she will be on probation for another five years at which time she is to seek employment, but the job must be approved by the probation department and, at their discretion, they will give notice to the employer of her past criminal behavior.She must also pay $500,000 in restitution to the company, but the payments will be determined later at a restitution hearing when she gets out of prison and has a job.Feeley also ordered her not to travel outside of Massachusetts during her probationary term.When asked by Feeley if she wanted to say something to the court, Sutley responded with a sigh and tears: “Just that I’m sorry.”Sutley, whose wardrobe will now be replaced by a green prison-issued sweatshirt and sweat pants, was a part-time accounts payable clerk for Weir Valves and Controls located on Old Right Road.The money stolen came from a series of schemes to defraud her employer over a seven-year period.Sutley’s deceptions came to light in June 2008 when an unusual charge of $436 for a hotel stay at Pickering Wharf in Salem was found on a corporate American Express card.After being confronted, Sutley offered to reimburse the company, walked out of the office and never returned. The discovery prompted an internal audit as well as a criminal investigation led by Ipswich police detective Peter Dziadose.Auditors found dozens of suspicious transactions. At that time, the thefts looked to be around $200,000, but that figure kept climbing, eventually to a total of $1,206,668 by the time the case was presented to an Essex County grand jury in January of this year.Assistant District Attorney Kristen R. Buxton said some of schemes involved diverting valid corporation issued checks into one of two personal American Express accounts by whiting out the American Express account number to be paid from a valid account to her own personal accounts.The monies were used to pay for personal contractors, extensive landscaping of her home, an in-ground pool, an up-scaled kitchen with an eight-burner Viking stove and granite countertops.Sutley had purchased her Lynn home on Isabella Street in 2005 for $290,000, but the home now is in foreclosure proceedings.She also sent her daughter to a private school in Marblehead and traveled extensively with at least some of the money to Europe and Disney World.Sutley explained to her co-workers that she had received an inheritance, claiming her 79-year-old mother had died and left her money. She even went so far as to arrange an obituary for the woman, when in fact she was still alive.Sutley grew up in Lynn and has two children, ages 6 and 17. She attended college and has a degree in accounting.Buxton asked for a punishment of at least seven to 10 years in prison with probation telling Feeley that this is the third time she has stolen from an employer. Previously she stole more than $11,000 from a patient accounts at the Grosvenor Park Nursing Home in Salem, where she was working at the time. The case was eventually continued without a finding and Sutley was ordered to pay re