Bookkeeper Allegedly Steals
More Than $800,000

Bonnie Michelle Denning Booking Photo

An Alva woman was arrested for stealing $818,339.37 between February 2010 and May 2011 while employed as a bookkeeper for Easy Picker Golf Products, Inc. in Lehigh Acres.

Bonnie Denning of 18120 River Chase Court, Alva, was arrested Tuesday, June 26, 2012 and has been charged with first degree grand theft and scheming to defraud.

The theft was brought to the attention of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office on May 20, 2011 when one of the business owners filed a report. Investigators with the Economic Crimes Unit immediately began to conduct an investigation into the allegations and uncovered a myriad of expenditures made by Denning for her personal use.

Prior to involvement by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office investigators, the business owners suspected something was amiss when they began to experience cash flow problems. They turned their business records over to a C.P.A. for analysis and he identified unusual wire transfers and a large number of debit card transactions from the business.

Multiple checks had been written and a debit card had been obtained for the business by Denning. She had even written a check for $5,295.76 for shutters for her home. Further investigation revealed 54 unauthorized wire transfers totaling $358,885.50 including $4,799.58 for granite installation for her home and $29,160.00 for a drug rehabilitation program for a relative.

She also made 60 unauthorized debit card purchases totaling $411,387.00. A majority of the debit card purchases were to online clothing stores, gas stations, electronic retailers and home furniture stores.

The total amount wire transferred by Denning into other accounts without permission or authority to do so was $358,885.50. This included $269,534.88 that had been wired to businesses in which Bonnie Denning is the officer/ registered Agent through the Florida Division of Corporations. These businesses are:

Southern Land Property Management Company LLC

The Burson-Denning Group, Inc.

Southern Land Investment & Real Estate, Inc.

J&B Real Estate Inc.

BL Properties, LLC.

1. 

   Framk mclntosh says:

   June 28, 2012 at 5:35 pm

   Wow this is an outragios amount of money to be taken in such a short time.l can,t imagine how thls could happen without being suspicous that tjere is more to this story and should be looked in to more closly by the press.

   reply