After her boss fired her in 2016 for stealing more than $1 million from the Kihei plant nursery where she worked as its bookkeeper, Thelma Pascua-Suyat withdrew the last $1,500 that was in the company’s bank account, Ki-Hana Nursery owner Louis Scott Walsh told a federal judge Monday.
“She was ruthless,” Walsh said, “She didn’t give us an inch.”
Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway sentenced Pascua-Suyat on Monday to 43 months in prison for wire fraud. She also ordered Pascua-Suyat to pay $1,167,895 in restitution, more than a million of it to Ki-Hana. The rest is owed to American Express, Capital One and mortgage loan services company Seterus, Inc.
Pascua-Suyat pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May
for stealing $1,313,631 from Ki-Hana between December 2008 and January 2016. Walsh said he believes Pascua-Suyat stole more than that but he was only able to recover financial records to 2008. He said Pascua-Suyat started working for Ki-Hana in 2004, on the recommendation of his father, who knew her from church.
The amount Pascua-
Suyat owes was reduced at sentencing because she was able to prove that she used her own credit cards to pay some company expenses. Walsh and Assistant U.S.
Attorney Kenneth Sorenson said Pascua-Suyat did that to earn points on her credit card.
Walsh, 65, said he was forced to sell a condominium he hoped to use in his retirement and get a $50,000 loan to keep the nursery afloat.
“She destroyed pretty much the whole business,” he said.
As Pascua-Suyat was stealing company money to pay off the mortgage on her Kahului home and live a lavish lifestyle, Walsh said he couldn’t afford to go on vacations of his own, fix the roof to his house, give himself a paycheck and even pay the rent. When his business partner brother died from cancer, there was no money left for his widow because the company had to stop paying for life insurance.
Pascua-Suyat told Mollway she is sorry and has no excuse for what she did.
Mollway told her that part of the reason she didn’t impose a longer prison sentence is because she has the support and forgiveness of her family. Mollway conceded, though, that some family members were probably beneficiaries of Pascua-
Suyat’s crime.
Walsh said he found records of Pascua-Suyat depositing company money into the bank accounts of her son and sister.
The government says Pascua-Suyat spent $65,753 of Ki-Hana money on her mortgage and more than a million on payments for her husband’s credit cards, for which she was an authorized user.
Pascua-Suyat’s husband filed for and was granted an uncontested divorce in 2016. He filed for bankruptcy protection in 2018 and lists the Kahului home as one of two properties he owns. The other property is in Nevada.
