Woman Sentenced to Prison for 401(k) Theft

Fred Schneyer – 07/08/2009
A woman accused of stealing from a co-worker’s 401(k) account has been sentenced to a one-year jail term.

A Justice Department news release said a federal judge also mandated that Dana Wachter serve three years of supervised probation and pay $38,000 in restitution for the total stolen from her co-worker.

Wachter was accused of using the co-worker’s Social Security and other personal ID numbers to authorize an $18,000 payout from the co-worker’s 401(k), and then cashing the resulting check.

Wachter was sentenced in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. She was indicted in June 2008 on one count each of aggregated identity theft, mail fraud, and theft from an employee benefit covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.