Illinois bookkeeper accused of stealing more than $1.3M from suburban business

BENSENVILLE, Ill. - A Chicago-area businessman is frustrated after discovering more than a million dollars is missing from several of his company bank accounts.

DuPage County prosecutors recently charged his former, longtime bookkeeper with felony theft and identity theft.

In tonight’s Unit 32 investigation, our Tia Ewing follows the money to see just how much damage was done and to whom.

Bensenville bookkeeping scam

The backstory:

Tasha Holbrook turned herself into Bensenville police on the morning of July 14.

A warrant was out for her arrest that included two counts of felony theft and two counts of identity theft.

This is something Ira Katz hoped to see happen back in 2022 after he and two of his supervisors noticed the company books were not balancing and they started to do some digging of their own.

"I called her at home and told her that 'We have all this evidence against you. I have the police from Bensenville here to talk to you. You can turn yourself in and make your life a lot easier or they're gonna come and get you,' and she told me she'll be there in 30 minutes, but never showed up," business owner Ira Katz said.

According to a Bensenville police report, Katz had called the police to 730 Birginal Drive, or the location of his Comfort Indoor Solutions business on Sept. 9, 2022, "for a report of embezzlement by an employee."

That’s just one of several businesses he owns or used to own.

The report also says Holbrook had been working for Katz since January 3, 2012, as "the account manager and had access to the business bank accounts."

Katz told police "he began to notice a deficit of funds from the company and when he asked Holbrook about the missing monies she never provided an accurate reason."

"Phil, my VP of Comfort and Indoor Solutions, and I and one of my other guys, Ted, started looking into the books and we found visas that were to Macy's and to other organizations. And that's the red flags that opened up that can of worms, because I don't buy for Macy's, $5,000 in clothes," Katz said.

When Bensenville police started looking, they found money being sent from Katz’s accounts to a long list of other places – including Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Home Depot, PayPal and several credit card companies.

It took a few years for investigators to subpoena all of those credit records and receive them for review.

In the end, the police report stated, "Holbrook has stolen over $600,000 from her employer."

But the buck didn’t stop there.

"Ultimately, it did go to the state's attorney and at the time, they thought it was a decent amount of money, $600,000. But the state's attorney then, he's a financial crimes investigator, and he felt it was a lot more money than that. And he literally got it up to over $1.3 million, Katz said.

In Holbrook’s indictment, she is charged with two felony theft counts. One is for over $1 million. The other is for over $100,000.

She’s also charged with two counts of identity theft. In one count, she allegedly used not only company credit cards but Katz’s "personal identifying information" to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Prosecutors say Holbrook took this money over a four-year period – from August 2018 to August 2022.

Despite those charges and dollar amounts, Bensenville police released Holbrook on her own recognizance – meaning she did not have to post any bail.

A few weeks later, she pleaded not guilty to all charges when she appeared in DuPage County Circuit Court for her arraignment.

Unit 32 was there and our cameras caught her as she was leaving the courthouse.

"In order for a judge to hold somebody pretrial, they either have to be a threat to the community or a flight risk. And apparently the judge didn't find either of those to be present in this case," said former FBI agent Ross Rice.

We asked Rice to take a look at this case and tell us how Holbrook moved the money without anyone noticing for years.

"It's very similar to Rita Crunwell, who was the city treasurer in Dixon, Illinois, in over a 22-year period. She embezzled over $50 million in city funds. This case didn't rise to that level, but $1 million from a private firm, a small family-owned business, obviously is quite significant," Ross said.

After looking at the Bensenville police report, Rice says Holbrook’s actions were hiding in plain sight.

"If somebody would have taken a close look at the transactions to see where the money was actually going, because these were funds transfers, not checks. So it's not like you had a canceled check you would look at and say, 'oh, who paid Nordstrom's for $3,200? It was an ACH.' So you'd have to go in and look at details and see where that payment was going. And apparently that never happened," Ross said.

"I don't think there was a situation where she signed a check. She didn't have authority to do that, apparently. So these were all electronic fund transfers," Ross said.

That could explain why the safeguards Katz says he had in place didn’t seem to work.

"When we were working with the Commercial Insurance Services, our consulting company, which we had at that time about 46 employees, I was going to sell that company. And we kept seeing situations like low profits after we're doing some big business. And so I went ahead and contacted my... My accounting firm to see what was going on, and they said, ‘Everything is fine, just your cost of doing business is high.’ And they were also making literally monthly adjustments to our accounting, and we questioned that, but they said ‘no, this is normal, little adjustments here and there,’ and I would say, 'those are not little adjustments.'

Katz says he also had a CFO to review any checks Holbrook signed.

Again, that probably wasn’t happening, as Rice says the money was being electronically transferred.

When Bensenville police looked at the IP addresses for those transfers, they found many of them took place while Tasha was at work and using the company's internet.

"At one point, she became a lot more magnanimous in her, what I would call her stealing," Ross said.

Dig deeper:

One of Katz’s managers alerted police to a woman in Texas who Holbroook had been sending money to after tracking her down through a Square app receipt.

When Bensenville police called this woman, she told them Holbrook first contacted her in 2019 after she put up a Facebook post "requesting assistance for the care of a sick/injured/homeless dog." The Texas woman went on to say Tasha sent her $20 and began assisting her "all the time with these animals, including making payments for vet bills, vaccinations and boarding."

The woman explained to investigators she "believed Holbrook to simply be a rich woman who cared about animals" and "was unaware that the funds she was receiving were not authorized." 

"We found that there was transfers of money throughout the country, Katz said. "Actually some of it went to a woman in Texas to take care of her dog actually. She was in need of her dogs to be in some doctor care. So she paid for it. She got friendly with her her son and this woman actually called us and said, you know, where do you know Tasha Holbrook? And she is telling me that she's basically stole money from you. And so we already knew that this was going on and this is after she had left us."

While sponsoring these animals, police say Tasha received a video message from a man in Houston Texas. According to the Bensenville police report, the man had been in prison for ten years and was let out on parole two years earlier.

The police report says Tasha and the a man "began a relationship and may have gotten married." Tasha provided the man with funds "which were used for vehicle purchases and a home purchase."

As time went on, the woman told police Tasha was threatened or convinced by the man to continue to provide funds. The woman told police the man threatened Tasha would get into trouble for her actions, no physical threats.

At one point, Bensenville police tracked "130 purchases shipped to Holbrook or her friends and family that don’t appear to be business related."

Those recipients included Holbrook’s boyfriend in Houston Texas, and Tasha’s sponsored animal care – also in Houston.

"She was my right-hand person. I needed to transfer money because we were buying a building or doing construction. I'd tell her where to send it to, and she did it. Our vice president, CFO, was always supposed to check the books, and the accounting company was supposed to all that, and they did not," Katz said.

Even though at one point he owned a handful of companies and did millions of dollars in business, Katz says he prides himself on treating his employees like family, including Tasha.

"I thought that with what I've done for her, what helped her through a fire, helped her with her son in a motorcycle accident, had brain injury, damage, that she would, I thought I knew her well enough that she'd come in and do the right thing," Katz said.

According to a Glendale Heights Fire Department report, they were called to Holbrook’s home on West Nevada Avenue on November 29, 2021, just before 5 p.m.

A neighbor reported seeing smoke coming from the residence. When crews arrived, "flames were seen rolling across the kitchen ceiling."

Firefighters were able to extinguish them but there was heavy smoke damage throughout the house.

The department’s report says "the cause of fire is undetermined."

Both Glendale Heights fire and police went through the house after the fire.

The police report states they found several dogs and cats that were taken for treatment. They also found two guns: A Glock 19 and a Smith and Wesson M P. They were found in the dresser drawer next to the bed. Police said they were legally registered to the man who owns them and released to him.

The fire report indicates Holbrook lived there with at least her three children — a 22-year-old son and another son and daughter whose ages are unknown.

The Bensenville police report shows Holbrook then moved to Wheaton while her house was being renovated.

"You know, it's never, to me it's obviously a lot of money. To me more important is that I had to lay off employees that I really loved. I cared about them. I knew their kids. I've been to some of their weddings," Katz said.

Big picture view:

After Katz discovered what Holbrook was doing, he says he could no longer go through with the sale of one of his companies and wound up closing it instead.

"The company that wanted to buy us didn't feel we were profitable enough. They were wondering where the cash flow was. And at the time, I just decided it wasn't going forward. And so we ended up closing the business out, which is the first business that I ever closed," Katz said.

Katz said that also meant laying off employees for the first time, more than forty of them.

"There was people with me for many, many, many years that were very hurt by it. They weren't mad at me. They were just sad that the company that they built and worked around did not survive," Kats said.

What's next:

Holbrook is due back in DuPage County Circuit Court on Thursday

One last interesting note: The Bensenville police report mentions a Facebook search warrant response that says, in part, "Tasha goes on to admit to the theft of money from her employer"

Fox Chicago tried to contact her attorney for a statement but were unable to do so.