Question

Connie is an accountant who works for a corporation that owns retail plumbing stores. Connie works in the corporate office, which is located above one of the stores. Every night, the downstairs store's assistant manager brings Connie a bag of cash that the store received from sales that day. Connie’s job duties include counting the cash each day before her work day ends and taking it to the company’s bank to be deposited into the company’s account. One day, Connie’s car mechanic called her at work and explained that Connie’s car required an expensive engine overhaul before she could drive it again. Connie used her car to take her daughter to school and did not have the money necessary to pay for the repairs. Connie decided that she would borrow the money from her mother, but could not do that until her mother returned from a two-week vacation. In the meantime, Connie paid the car mechanic using the company’s cash that she received from the assistant manager, but always planning to replace the company's money after her mom returned from her vacation. Also, on her way out of the office to pick up her car from the mechanic, she noticed a box sitting on a counter at work that contained a new showerhead that a customer had returned to the store. Without asking anyone for permission, Connie took the showerhead with her and installed it in her own bathroom at home.

Discuss the criminal conduct that Connie has committed, if any. (You must use the correct legal terminology to identify whatever criminal activity you discuss.)

Answer 1

Connie has committed embezzlement by using the company's cash for her personal expenses and theft by taking a returned showerhead from the company without permission.

Step-by-step explanation:

Connie, an accountant for a corporation, has committed two separate criminal acts. First, she has committed embezzlement by unlawfully taking the company's money that she was responsible for depositing into the company's bank account. Embezzlement is a form of white-collar crime in which a person, entrusted with funds or assets, unlawfully appropriates them for their own use. By using the company's cash to pay her car mechanic with the intention to repay it later, she has still committed a crime as she temporarily deprived the company of its funds without permission.

Furthermore, Connie's action of taking a returned showerhead without permission constitutes theft. Theft involves taking someone else's property without their consent with the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of it. Even if the item was a return and she may have thought it carried less value, it is still company property, and her action was not authorized making it a theft.