Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

Unity House officer
pleads guilty to
65 fraud charges

---

Star-Bulletin staff

An executive secretary to Unity House has pleaded guilty to charges she misappropriated more than $125,000 from the labor union's accounts over a three-year period.

Linda Carpenter pleaded guilty as charged yesterday before U.S. District Judge Susan Mollway to 65 counts of obtaining money through fraudulent means from October 1991 to March 1995.

Each of the counts is punishable under federal statutes by a maximum 30 years in prison, said her court-appointed attorney, Stuart Fujioka.

She will remain free on bail pending sentencing on Feb. 20.

According to the indictment, Carpenter took 65 Unity House checks, made them out to legitimate vendors and either forged or had the payors sign the checks, then changed the payee to herself, her husband or her creditors.

The checks ranged from $607 to $5,113.

She allegedly hid the thefts by making false entries into the check registers.

U.S. Assistant Attorney Marshall Silverberg could not be reached for comment.