The Erie County District Attorney’s Office revealed that a Depew woman will only serve the least possible prison time despite embezzling over $710,000 from business owners over seven years.
From July 2016 to August 2023, 59-year-old Camille Pirrone-Hess worked as an office manager at Lancaster Tanks and Steel Products and remained involved in highly fraudulent financial practices. However, she just received a small prison time ranging from 1.3 to 4 years, which is barely above the minimum penalty for the offense, which is 1 to 3 years.
Seeing the court verdict, acting Erie County District Attorney Mike Keane was disappointed and stated that he wanted 15 years incarceration for Pirrone-Hess due to the scale of damage she inflicted on the victims.
Keane also added that the defendant robbed $700,000 from the victims and made them suffer from unprecedented damages that destroyed their lives, but she still managed to get away with it.
Reportedly, Pirrone-Hess misused the credit card of her company and was involved in more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions, including purchasing highly luxurious vacation and event tickets, jewelry, children’s tuition, and utility bills, among other personal things.
John and June Brennan, the business owners affected by the fraud, recalled the tough situations their businesses were going through at a time when Pirrone-Hess was busy doing these transactions.
John said that he had to take out a loan for his own children’s education while Pirrone-Hess paid her kids’ school fees with the company’s credit card. He also claimed that he used to bring homemade lunch to work when Pirrone-Hess was partying at luxurious restaurants.
Brennans also revealed that Pirrone-Hess was renting out a cabana at a premium Las Vegas resort, doing helicopter vacation tours, and even purchasing kitchen items for her boyfriend. According to Brennans, they saw her enjoying all these luxuries and she did not show any concern about the difficulties faced by the business.
On May 13, Pirrone-Hess entered the guilty plea to second-degree grand larceny and agreed to repay the complete amount of $719,122.41 to the victims. However, she is yet to pay anything.
