According to court documents, 35-year-old Dara Little of Mitchell was hired as the Executive Director of Nursing at a senior living facility in Bedford in May of 2014. Her duties required access to online-based platforms used to submit business expense reimbursement requests. Little was fired for timesheet fraud and theft of prescription medicine in January 2016 but did not have her access to the reimbursement request platform revoked.
Following termination, Dara Little submitted 24 reimbursement requests totaling nearly $59,000 with falsified receipts that were unrelated to her employment at the facility. Purchases continued for five months until her access was revoked in September of 2016. Little began using another employee’s account to submit fraudulent requests the day after her access to the platform was revoked.
From September 2016 to March 2021, Little submitted 172 falsified requests, netting $173,900 from her former employer. She utilized a different employee’s account for 155 forged requests from October 2017 to March 2021, gaining more than $161,000 in payments Little was not entitled to.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation found a note in Little’s cell phone in which she admitted to stealing over $400,000 from her former employer over the course of 5 years, along with details as to what personal expenses were paid for with the stolen funds.
U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker sentenced Dara Little to 27 months in federal prison with 3 years supervised probation following her release. She has also been ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $419,542.45 for her guilty plea to three counts of wire fraud.
