A former business manager of a Massachusetts retirement home was arraigned Tuesday on charges that she stole a total of almost $537,000 ($536,556) from several accounts operated by the facility.
The indictment against Sherry Verdick — on counts of larceny, making false entries in corporate books with intent to defraud, forgery, uttering and obtaining a signature under false pretenses — had been announced Dec. 23.
Verdick worked at The Berkeley Retirement Home in Lawrence, MA. The Massachusetts attorney general’s office alleges that from January 2016 through September 2018, she wrote several hundred checks to herself from various accounts affiliated with the retirement community, forged various signatures of other Berkeley employees to steal money from Berkeley accounts, improperly used a corporate credit card for personal purchases, and altered the company’s payroll system to reduce her health insurance contribution to $0. The attorney general’s office also alleges that Verdick was able to steal money from the estate of a deceased resident by misleading another employee into signing a check which Verdick then deposited into a Berkeley account for which she was a signatory.
“Staff at the Berkeley Retirement Home fully complied and provided extremely valuable assistance to the investigation,” the attorney general’s office said.
