A federal grand jury has indicted a Zwolle woman for allegedly manipulating an electronic payroll system that allowed her husband to get extra pay through through extended vacation hours.
Melissa H. Sepulvado, 58, was indicted on 25 counts of wire fraud, Acting U.S. Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced Monday in a news release.
The alleged crime took place while Sepulvado and her husband worked at the Weyerhaeuser mill in Zwolle. She was a senior support specialist and her husband an hourly worker.
Sepulvado's job was to review and approve payroll entries for the hourly workers through an internet-based electronic payroll system. The indictment alleges from November 2014 through April 2017, Sepulvado devised a scheme to defraud and obtain money from Weyerhaeuser by using interstate wire communications, including the transmission of electronic payroll information.
Sepulvado is accused of regularly entering fraudulent vacation hours on her husband’s time sheet and submitting electronic pay requests for those hours. Although her husband was eligible to receive 200 hours of paid vacation time each calendar year, Sepulvado entered and approved over 4,000 hours of paid vacation time for her husband for the calendar year 2016 alone, Van Hook said.
Sepulvado took steps to conceal the fraudulent pay requests by backdating the paid vacation hours to completed pay periods, Van Hook said. The indictment further alleges the fraudulent pay requests caused Weyerhaeuser to pay over $145,000 in unearned wages to her husband, which were taken and controlled by Sepulvado.