Embezzlement is a type of white-collar crime. At its core, it is a form of theft. It often involves executives or other employees stealing from the business that they work for.
There are some intricacies to how embezzlement works and exactly what it means. It is important for those who are facing an embezzlement charge to understand what the offense entails.
Fraudulent misappropriation
Rather than being direct theft, embezzlement is a form of fraudulent misappropriation of assets that the person was legally allowed to access. For example, consider a business’s bank account. If an outside party was able to hack into the account and transfer money into their own account, that would simply be a form of theft. They were never supposed to access that account or remove the money, and they have directly stolen it from the business.
With embezzlement, access has typically been granted. For example, an employee of a business may be allowed to access the account to they pay bills on the business’s behalf or to make payments to other employees.
The problem happens when they fraudulently misappropriate those assets for their own gain. If that employee decided to use their access to transfer $10,000 to their own account, without permission, then it would be embezzlement. It is not the access that is the issue, but the way that they abused that privilege.
Legal defense options
This helps to explain some of the details of an embezzlement charge. Anyone who is facing such a charge needs to know exactly what legal defense options they have. Getting experienced legal guidance is a good first step for anyone who learns that they’re under investigation or is already facing one or more criminal charges.
