Vancouver woman accused of stealing $75,000 from employer

A Vancouver woman accused of stealing $75,000 from a local contractor while working as the business’s bookkeeper appeared Thursday in Clark County Superior Court on suspicion of first-degree theft.

Lehia Diane Polzen, 64, was released on her own recognizance. She is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday, court records show.

Clark County Sheriff’s Office fraud investigators said Polzen wrote 33 checks to herself from Superior LLC’s bank account while working as a part-time bookkeeper between November 2017 and July 2019. Detectives said the checks made out to Polzen were entered into the company’s QuickBooks account with a different payee. Polzen used 19 different vendors as payees for checks that she actually made out to herself, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Investigators also found some checks written to Polzen that were not entered into the company’s accounting journal, court records state.

The fraudulent checks came out to a total of $75,003.50, the affidavit says.

The manager whose signature was on the checks told investigators she did not sign the checks made out to Polzen. Investigators said they believe Polzen forged her manager’s signature onto the checks, according to the affidavit.