A New Jersey woman has pleaded guilty to stealing roughly $4 million from her employer, a trucking company, to fund her gambling habit.
Jeanette Avellan pleaded guilty to charges involving theft from West End Express, based in South Brunswick. The company’s website describes it as a truckload carrier and drayage provider.
Avellan pleaded guilty to second-degree theft of movable property, third-degree failure to pay income taxes and third-degree filing a fraudulent tax return. The guilty plea comes with a recommended sentence of four years in state prison, according to a prepared statement from state Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
“Employers need to know the people they hire to handle sensitive financial duties can be trusted to do their jobs honestly and professionally,” Theresa L. Hilton, director of the state’s Division of Criminal Justice, said in the statement. The DCJ also participated in the investigation. “Unfortunately, in this case, the defendant’s gambling habit led her to steal from her employer and then try to hide her theft by filing fraudulent tax returns.”
At the plea hearing, according to the release from the attorney general, Avellan said she was a bookkeeper for West End Express beginning in 2005. Her theft of the $4 million occurred between January 2017 and January 2023. Avellan said at the plea hearing that she did not declare any of the stolen funds as income when filing her tax returns.
Restitution is set at $4.03 million to her victims and about $560,000 to the state for back taxes and penalties.
She will be formally sentenced May 9 in Monmouth County.
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