Rosalba Meza, Embezzlement, California 2023

SANTA ANA, California – A brazen embezzlement scheme in Orange County has landed a local woman behind bars for over five years.

Rosalba Meza, 48, a.k.a. ‘Rosalba Sceville,’ of Dana Point, was sentenced by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney to 63 months in federal prison for embezzling more than $3 million from two companies that employed her.

Meza was also ordered to pay $4,192,470 in restitution for the crimes, which included wire fraud and subscribing to a false tax return.

Between May 2017 and the end of 2019, Meza made unauthorized transfers totaling approximately $3,071,880 to her own bank accounts from accounts belonging to Trilogy Plumbing Inc. and a related back-office support company called Matrix Management LLC, both based in Anaheim.

Meza held various positions at these companies since 2003 and was entrusted with access to and control of the companies’ financial and banking information. In her role, Meza oversaw and handled the companies’ daily financial activities, including banking, bookkeeping, and preparation of financial statements.

Prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum that Meza took advantage of the responsibility she was entrusted with at the expense of her employers, causing significant harm over the course of several years. Meza’s scheme also involved cheating on her taxes and fraudulently obtaining a COVID-relief business loan.

Meza willfully failed to report $3,132,617 in income to the IRS, resulting in a total tax loss of $1,100,022 to the United States. She also admitted to submitting a false and fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application for $20,569 for her eponymous business entity.

In addition to her prison sentence, Meza will be required to pay restitution for the crimes. The exact date of the scheme’s discovery and Meza’s arrest are not specified in the source.

For the tax years 2017, 2018, and 2019, Meza knowingly and willfully signed false personal federal income tax returns that vastly understated her annual income. On her 2018 federal tax return, Meza falsely reported that her income was $65,728, which did not include the $1,363,654 she obtained that year from stealing from her employers.

Meza used her knowledge of the companies’ accounting software to intentionally falsify their accounting records, misrepresenting the amounts in the companies’ various accounts to conceal the unauthorized transfers and falsely show the companies’ accounts were balanced.

The scheme lasted until January 2020, when Trilogy and Matrix fired Meza. Once Meza transferred the funds to her accounts, she used the stolen money on personal expenses, withdrew a large amount in cash, wired a significant amount to a family member-owned bank account in Mexico, and made other transfers of the illicitly obtained funds to family and friends.

Meza pleaded guilty in December 2022 to one count of wire fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return.

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