By: Michaela Paukner, [email protected]//October 18, 2019//
By: Michaela Paukner, [email protected]//October 18, 2019//
An Appleton woman could spend up to 25 years in prison for stealing $1.3 million from her former employer and using it to go on luxury vacations and cruises.
Lisa Radtke, a 51-year-old woman, pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of wire fraud and one count of tax evasion in federal court. As part of her guilty pleas, she agreed to make restitution to her former employer for $1.3 million and to the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid taxes and penalties in the amount of $634,000.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin’s Office said Radtke defrauded her former employer from 2014 to 2018. Court documents showed she made fraudulent entries in her employer’s books and issued payments from her employer’s accounts to pay herself and her credit-card bills. The documents said she also put her husband on the company’s payroll and paid him with the company’s money, even though he didn’t work there. Radtke spent most of the stolen $1.3 million on luxury vacations and cruises.
Radtke could spend up to 25 years in prison and owe up to $500,000 in fines, in addition to the nearly $2 million in restitution. Her sentencing is scheduled for January 2020 in Green Bay. Follow @WLJReporter