FORMER COMPANY BOOKKEEPER CONVICTED AND SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR THEFT & EMBEZZLEMENT

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today that Elizabeth Strein Rothmeyer Zinslen, 32, presently residing in Canton, Ohio, was convicted Wednesday of felony theft and fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary (embezzlement)after a jury trial in Baltimore City Circuit Court. The Honorable Thomas J. S. Waxter, Jr., the presiding judge, sentenced the defendant to five years incarceration, suspending all but six months. The sentence commenced immediately. The Court also imposed a five-year period of supervised probation with the condition that the defendant pay at least $40,000 in restitution to the victim of the theft and embezzlement, the J. G. Martin Company, a commercial heating and air conditioning company located at 4925 Belair Road in Baltimore.

The State proved during the trial that Elizabeth Rothmeyer stole $203,000 from the Baltimore area business while she was employed there as the company bookkeeper. Ms. Rothmeyer employed two separate schemes to steal the money. In one instance she issued over 70 checks to purportedly pay company suppliers, instead she endorsed the checks and deposited them into her personal Harford County bank account. Similarly, she wrote a check to herself for $9,000, forged the signature of the company owner and deposited it into her bank account in Canton, Ohio. Rothmeyer obscured these fraudulent transactions by altering or destroying company records.

"Ms. Rothmeyer was hired by her employer to keep the books not cook them," Attorney General Curran said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation referred the case to the Criminal Investigations Division of the Maryland Attorney General's Office.

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