Former Forest Service Employee Gets Four Years in Prison for Embezzling $1.4 Million

A former employee of the offices in Arcadia was sentenced to four years in federal prison on Monday for embezzling more than $1.4 million from the United States Forest Service, according to a statement released by the United States Attorney’s Office.

Kathy Stamps, 39, of Rancho Cucamonga, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder to pay restitution in the amount of $1,090,744, which is the portion of the embezzled money that prosecutors say Stamps had spent on personal items such as cars, jewelry, mortgage payments and plastic surgery.

From early 2002 through October 2004, Stamps--who was an accountant at the Forest Service--fraudulently manipulated and fabricated internal Forest Service records that caused the U.S. Treasury to issue six refund checks totaling $1,421,390 to entities she controlled, according to authorities. The government was able to seize $330,645 from Stamps’ bank accounts after the embezzlement was discovered.

Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Stamps “exhibited a complete disregard for the law,” during the three years she embezzled money from the Forest Service. 

Judge Snyder convicted Stamps of three counts of mail fraud relating to the embezzlement following a bench trial last September.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Secret Service investigated the case, according to federal prosecutors.