A 33-year-old Alexander woman was sentenced to 10 years on probation for stealing money from her job while she was on federal probation for taking more than $316,000 from a previous employer.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen sentenced Amber Gulley Anderson on Thursday to pay $1,000 in restitution at $75 per month plus perform 100 hours of community service within two years and pay a $250 fine.
She already has served a five-month prison sentence for violating her probation in the federal case, court records show.
In a written statement to the court apologizing for her crimes, Anderson said she was "dishonest and greedy" and begged the judge for another chance to be a good parent to her child.
"Not only do I have the responsibility to my 9-year-old daughter, but I feel like I have something to offer society. Prison will only further delay me in being able to repay the victim of my crime," she wrote. "I am truly sorry for my bad decisions. I am asking you for another chance to prove that I can do right and live a productive life. I have the potential to be much more than my bad choices. I promise I will never take from anybody else."
Anderson, who reported being indigent, pleaded guilty to theft and two counts of forgery, with the amount of money stolen initially estimated at more than $25,000, court records show.
In exchange for her guilty plea to the charges, which together carried a maximum 40-year prison term, prosecutors agreed to leave her sentencing up to the judge.
Court filings show Little Rock police documented 72 checks Anderson had forged on bank accounts of her employer, PDC Companies of Little Rock, between Jan. 30, 2015, and June 24, 2015.
She'd been hired by the property-management company in November of 2014, and her duties included paying invoices and writing checks to pay bills, although she did not have check-signing authority, court records show.
Anderson was fired a week after that final check, when the company on North University Avenue discovered discrepancies in its finances.
The checks had at least two forged signatures from company employees who had signing authority, Linda Cook, Clarice Hall, Rhonda Wood and Martha Kornas, according to police reports.
The checks were deposited into an Arvest Bank account belonging to a company called Colored Foods, which listed Anderson and her mother as the account holders.
Little Rock detective Michael McVay gathered 25 surveillance videos from the bank branches where the checks were cashed, and the recordings all appeared to show the same woman.
Several videos showed her driving a blue Jeep Compass, and McVay traced its license plate to Anderson, court filings show.
Learning that Anderson was on federal probation, the detective then sent photos of the woman in the videos to Anderson's probation officer, who said the photographs were of the defendant.
McVay obtained an arrest warrant, and Anderson was taken into custody on Sept. 30, 2015, at the offices of her new employers, Wilson & Associates law firm, which specializes in real estate, on Merrill Drive.
Court records show that Anderson was placed on three-year federal probation in July 2013 after finishing a three-year prison sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
In that case, she and her co-defendant, estranged husband Quincy Anderson, 36, of Bryant, both pleaded guilty to the charge in March 2010 over the theft of money from another ex-employer, Splash Investment Group of North Little Rock. The company manages Splash carwashes in central Arkansas.
Court filings show Amber Anderson had been hired to manage the Splash group's payroll. She added as many as six fake employees to the books and obtained paychecks for them, including her husband, although none of them ever worked for Splash.
Quincy Anderson received about $143,904 while Amber Anderson paid $163,178 to another five people. She also took $9,202 from the payroll under the guise of payments representing her salary.
The scheme ran from September 2005, about the time Amber Anderson was hired, until October 2008, court filings show.
Quincy Anderson was sentenced to 18 months in prison in July 2010 to be followed by three years on probation, and the husband and wife were ordered to repay the company and its insurance provider, $143,904 from Quincy Anderson and $216,010 from Amber Anderson. Court records show more than $100,000 has been paid in restitution.
Federal prosecutors moved to revoke Amber Anderson's probation in November, in part because of the new charges, but also because Anderson had committed several probation violations, including failure to report for drug testing 17 times over a two-year period between September 2013 and October 2015.
She also missed 16 restitution payments over that time and had tested positive for hydrocodone, oxycodone and oxymorphone, medication for which she did not have a prescription, court filings show.
She admitted to the probation violations and reached an agreement in January with prosecutors to move into a halfway house for three months to give her time to resolve her legal problems, court filings show.
But prosecutors had her arrested in February, two days after she was released from a three-day stay at the hospital after an overdose of prescription medication she had consumed while living with her sister. She also told relatives and her probation officer that she had been using K2, which also is known as synthetic marijuana or Spice.
After a little more than a month in federal detention, Anderson admitted to the probation violations and was sentenced to five months in prison by U.S. District Judge Jay Moody Jr. She was released in July.
Metro on 10/01/2016