North Carolina woman pleads guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with embezzlement of funds from her employer

Date: Oct. 1, 2024

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HARRISBURG - The United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Rhonda Rochelle Canidate of Greensboro, North Carolina, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Christopher C. Conner to a two-count criminal information charging her with wire fraud and money laundering, in connection with a scheme to embezzle funds from her employer between 2021 and 2022.

According to U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam, between March 2021 and July 2022, Canidate was employed as an accounting specialist at Henry Molded Products Company ("Henry Molded") in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Between October 2021 and June 2022, Canidate entered false payment entries for former Henry Molded employees into Henry Molded's third-party payroll software, causing the software to issue direct deposit payments from Henry Molded's bank account to bank accounts controlled by Canidate in the name of the former employees. This fraud not only financially injured Henry Molded; it also harmed the former employees by creating an overpayment for tax purposes.

Canidate caused a loss of $532,050 and has agreed to pay restitution in accordance with a schedule to be determined by the Court.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). Assistant United States Attorney David C. Williams is prosecuting the case.

The maximum combined penalty under federal law for these offenses is 30 years, a term of supervised release following imprisonment, and a fine. A sentence following a finding of guilt is imposed by the Judge after consideration of the applicable federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.