A federal grand jury has indicted a bookkeeper for allegedly embezzling about $550,000 from Bilotta Kitchen & Home.
Susana Rivera, 40, of the Bronx, was arrested on Feb. 9 and charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. She pleaded not guilty to both charges before Magistrate Judge Paul E. Davison, in U.S. District Court, White Plains.
Bilotta, a second generation, family-run kitchen design and remodeling business based in Mamaroneck, hired Rivera in 2019 as the director of accounting and human resources. She was paid $80,000 annually, according to the indictment.
Rivera allegedly began stealing from her employer in November 2019, the month after she was hired, and continued to July 2021.
She had Bilotta’s payroll company make more than $370,000 in payments to a fake vendor she set up, the indictment states. She charged more than $175,000 for personal expenses on company credit cards and transferred $2,900 from a Bilotta bank account to pay her personal utility bills.
The government says Rivera posed as a Bilotta owner in communications with Bilotta’s credit card company by using one of the owner’s date of birth and sending images of the owner’s driver’s license.
Rivera spent the alleged ill-gotten gains on jewelry, beauty treatments, cosmetic surgery, clothing, pets, and travel, according to the indictment, and some of the money was used to make a partial payment on a $100,000 Corvette.
Rivera was released from custody on posting a $250,000 bond.
The FBI ran the investigation and James McMahon, an assistant U.S. attorney, is in charge of the prosecution. Rivera is represented by public defender Elizabeth K. Quinn.
