Woman faces sentencing related to another theft

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut woman is facing sentencing for tax evasion related to embezzling more than $200,000 from her employer in what her attorney says was part of a string of thefts from employers.

A psychiatric evaluation found Deborah Wilmot of Bridgewater suffers from several personality disorders, her attorney, Kurt F. Zimmermann, said. He said she stole the money to provide luxuries to her children.

Wilmot is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in New Haven. Federal authorities say she failed to pay $69,000 in taxes after she embezzled $221,624 from a software company where she was a bookkeeper.

Zimmermann, said in court papers the case "was only the latest of a long line of similar thefts" from virtually all her prior employers. She was sentenced to three years in prison in 2004 for stealing about $100,000 from the Canterbury School, a private school in New Milford.

The state recently filed larceny charges for an alleged embezzlement at a country club and is investigating Wilmot for potential improper claims for unemployment compensation, her attorney said.

Zimmermann noted that Wilmot's husband works as an executive at Sikorsky Aircraft and said the thefts did not stem from a financial emergency, gambling or drugs.

"Moreover, and most telling, is the fact that despite having experienced the avalanche of negative consequences of her prosecution and sentence for the Canterbury School incident, Mrs. Wilmot continued to rip off her employers going forward," Zimmermann wrote. "Her post-prison conduct represents an unbroken chain of accounting department jobs and her devising means to steal from these employers."

The psychiatric evaluation found that Wilmot knows that the adverse consequences to her and her family are the result of her willful criminal conduct, her attorney said.

"This is remarkable because she engaged in the thievery for the purpose of providing otherwise unaffordable luxuries to her children," Zimmermann wrote. "This apparent contradiction in thinking is, according to the evaluation, symptomatic of the personality disorders from which the defendant suffers — she apparently does not make any connection between the wrongfulness of her crimes and the drive to fulfill what she perceives as her obligation as a mother to her children. She utilizes the defenses of compartmentalization, delusion and an inability to form a coherent view of herself in the world in which she lives."

Zimmermann said a sentence of 18 to 24 months would be reasonable. Prosecutors did not file sentencing papers and declined to comment Monday.