Bellingham Police arrested the former assistant manager of Bellingham’s Hardware Sales on James Street on Monday for allegedly embezzling more than $1.4 million from the business, police said.
Amy Siniscarco, 44, turned herself in to police Monday after an investigation that started in August found evidence of embezzlement between 2017 and 2022, police said. In addition to the $1.4 million stolen over those six years, “there is evidence of financial loss to Hardware Sales by Siniscarco as far back as 2014,” Bellingham Police Lt. Claudia Murphy said in a news release.
“During the past four months, the Bellingham Police detective investigating this embezzlement case worked to identify the multiple ways in which Siniscarco took money from Hardware Sales and manipulated the accounting system and ledger to cover up and hide the thefts,” Murphy said.
The investigation found that Siniscarco, of Sedro-Woolley, used forged checks, mortgage direct payments, credit card fraud, petty cash theft and a number of other ways to make over 190 transactions totaling at least $1,424,696 from the business, according to the release.
After turning herself in, Siniscarco was booked in the Whatcom County Jail on seven counts of theft in the first degree, five counts of identity theft and 13 counts of forgery.
Siniscarco received one count of theft for each method she used to embezzle from the business, Murphy said. The counts of identity theft are for each address she sent merchandise from fraudulent credit card purchases to, and she received one count of forgery for each of the checks she forged over the six-year period, police said.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Amy Siniscarco’s job title. The story was updated to reflect this change on Jan. 3, 2023, at 12:38 p.m. The Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
