In May 2024, I was sitting in a dentist’s office with the dentist and her office manager, “Shawna.”  This was not a pleasant meeting.  My reason for being there was to assist the dentist with firing Shawna, who had worked there for 12 years.  My team had concluded an investigation, which confirmed that Shawna had stolen a felonious amount of patient payments over the previous year.

I knew that this dentist, one of the kindest people I know, would have trouble firing Shawna without moral support, so I was in her office to ensure that the firing actually happened. 

Facing compelling evidence, and under pressure from me, Shawna confessed.  She then begged the dentist to keep her job and repay the money.  The dentist looked helplessly at me for guidance.  I emphatically shook my head.  The dentist regained her nerve and fired Shawna, who I escorted from the premises.

However, the story didn’t end there.  Or more precisely, it didn’t begin there.  A couple of years before, the doctor had realized that Shawna was padding her payroll by claiming hundreds of overtime hours that were not actually worked as well as other spurious claims.  When the practice’s accountant raised the issue and the doctor realized what was happening, she confronted Shawna in 2022, who promised to stop the payroll theft and make repayment.

As you might guess, repayment never happened, and while Shawna did stop plundering the practice’s payroll, she simply substituted another form of theft.

The total loss to this doctor exceeded $200,000 and is now a police matter.

Stories abound like Shawna’s where dentists accept the word of thieves and live to regret it.  There are also many who have hired without doing proper pre-employment screening, and much later realize that they have hired a serial embezzler.  I have seen cases where embezzlers have managed to get hired at, and steal from, four or more practices.  One notorious dental thief hit over a dozen practices.  Roughly 20% of our investigations involve someone who has stolen elsewhere before.

Airlines recognize those who fly frequently with special status.  I wish that there was more recognition of embezzlement’s “frequent fliers.”

Once caught (and punished) why don’t these people learn their lesson?

The way I explain criminal behavior is this – every one of us, in sufficiently desperate circumstances, has the capacity to break the rules.  Picture your town after a hurricane has rolled through. The power is out and not coming back soon, there are downed trees blocking all the roads, the food in your fridge has spoiled, and your kids are hungry.  There is a grocery store down the street full of canned goods.  When it comes to a choice between your kids starving and stealing, any of us would decide that survival is paramount.

However, there is wide individual variation in what level of pressure is required to break laws.  Some require the kind of extreme situation I described, and for others the criminality threshold is much less; a month’s mortgage arrears or coveting a Rolex watch might be enough to push them into stealing.

If somebody has embezzled before without being in dire circumstances, their threshold for criminality is demonstrably low.  A similar level of pressure in the future, which is quite likely, will cause them to steal again.

Shawna, our six-figure embezzler, when asked why she stole, vaguely spoke of difficulties with her marriage as the triggering event.  With a low criminal threshold, her continuing to offend was foreseeable.

A 2018 study done by the U.S. Department of Justice tracked criminals after being released from prison and found that 45% of them returned to jail in less than a year, 69% got caught within three years, and after five years, 78% of the original offenders had been locked up again.[1] So clearly the risk of reoffending is high.

What can we learn from this information? 

1. No matter how emphatically someone promises not to reoffend, chances are that they will. Under no circumstances should you allow someone who has stolen to keep their job.  Even if the amount stolen this time was small, it’s likely to happen again, and next time for a bigger amount.
2. Logically, someone who would steal again from their current employer will steal from their new employer if forced to change jobs. So, proper pre-employment screening is essential.  This should include speaking with former employers, a criminal records check (one in four US adults has a criminal record) and drug testing.  In my experience, most dental practices do a terrible job of screening.  Thieves know this and are happy to take advantage.
3. Many thieves do not face legal consequences. Sometimes this is because the practice owner is cutting ethical corners.  Dentists who cheat on their taxes or their spouses, or who routinely write off co-payments have put themselves in a place where they cannot do much to an embezzler without consequences.  Many other victims go at the problem improperly and show up at the police station with a shoebox full of printouts from their practice management software.  They get the cold shoulder from the police, who have neither the hours nor the expertise to solve the crime.  Have a proper forensic investigation done, with a report written to make this complex crime understandable to the police, and prosecution becomes much more likely.

If someone has embezzled before, whether from you or someone else, the chances are overwhelming that they will do it again.  I’ll never claim that redemption is impossible; after getting in some trouble in my teens I went on to become a college graduate, military officer, forensic accountant, and CEO, so I am living proof that turning your life around is possible.  However, let’s agree that I beat the odds whereas most will not.

If you have softheartedly hung on to someone who stole, it’s time to reconsider that decision.  If you are hiring, conduct the diligence necessary to determine if they have “baggage,” and make an informed decision about whether they have a future with you.  Being picky about who has the privilege of working for you will stop a lot of embezzlement.

[1] Alper, Mario, Matthew R. Durose, and Joshua Markman, 2018 Update on Prisoner Recidivism: A 9-Year Follow-up Period (2005-2014), US Department of Justice 2018.