ST. PAUL – A federal indictment charges a former bookkeeper of the Farm Mercantile hardware store in Fairfax in south-central Minnesota with embezzling approximately $535,000.
A grand jury returned an indictment Tuesday charging Theresa Ernestine Linsmeier, 58, with wire fraud and filing false tax returns.
The charges allege that she transferred money to her personal credit cards directly from the accounts of the company and an unidentified individual from 2011 through 2016. She used the money to gamble online.
Linsmeier created false entries in the Farm Mercantile’s general ledger to conceal her embezzlement and make it look like the money she stole had been used to pay legitimate businesses expenses, according to the allegations.
It is also alleged that she underreported her true income by failing to include the money she took from her employer.
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The court lists five charges for filing false income taxes by not reporting $266,333 she allegedly embezzled.
