A former corporate controller with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hawaii Realty was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison Monday and ordered to pay more than $500,000 in restitution after she admitted to a scheme to divert commission payments to her personal accounts.

Courtney J. Cascante, 40, must pay restitution in the amount of $489,629.10 to Hiscox Insurance of Chicago and $21,515.10 to Berkshire. U.S. District Judge Jill A. Otake also sentenced Cascante to three years of federal probation and levied a $100 special assessment.

Scott Bradley, co- president and partner of Berkshire Hathaway Home­Services Hawaii Realty, told the Honolulu Star- Advertiser in an interview following Cascante’s sentencing that a lot of companies don’t report this type of crime.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, business for real estate companies “went to nothing.” The real estate market rebounded shortly after that, and the company examined its books and found that “our results didn’t reflect the rebound in the market.”

The company was lucky to have insurance, he said, and is in a good place today. Bradley lauded the work of his employees who found the fraud and the professional work of the state Attorney General’s Office, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. attorney’s office.

“I want to thank my partners for standing up and being willing to do this so it doesn’t happen to other companies,” Bradley said.

Cascante’s attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Melinda K. Yamaga, did not immediately respond to a Star-Advertiser request for comment. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christine Olson and Michael D. Nammar, who prosecuted the case for the government, declined comment.

In a book about her life assembled for Otake that is a mix of photo collages and narrative, Cascante tells a story of a hardworking woman striving for her mother’s approval in a male- dominated field who was a victim of sexual assault and harassment.

“I am ashamed for my actions and all the people I have hurt. I hurt my former employer and many that I never intended to hurt. I am deeply regretful for having been so out of control and so humiliatingly stupid. For all of this, I am sorry,” she wrote in the first of three chapters.

While working at Berkshire, she said, she “started to feel unwell.” She said she tried to take time off during the pandemic, but “the company expressed their need for me during a time of such change, so I stayed on without a break.”

“I kept silent and tried to bare my hardships but that made me resentful. I was sick and mad and my actions have hurt a lot of people. Aside from all of this, I would like you to know who I am,” Cascante wrote.

Part of Cascante’s responsibilities with the company was preparing batch commission payments to real estate agents for real estate transactions that had recently closed. She originated these commission payments using Berkshire’s online banking portal with a local bank, according to the plea agreement.

On at least a dozen separate occasions, she diverted the batch electronic payments to three accounts controlled by her on the mainland, and then to her account in Hawaii. All 12 of these transactions relied on false or misleading payment support documents as well as the unauthorized use of the names of other Berkshire employees.

Cascante then provided payment support documents to a Berkshire co-president, who reviewed and approved the payment support information. She told the company in supporting dockets for each transaction that the money was for real estate for properties they recently closed.

Each report also indicated that the payment recipient was a specific real estate agent, the name of whom Cascante used to make the payments appear legitimate, according to the plea agreement.

In seven of the 12 transactions, Cascante created duplicate payments that appeared related to actual real estate transactions that had closed. In these instances a paper check was legitimately and properly paid to another real estate agent. Cascante then cut a second, duplicate batch electronic payment to one of her own bank accounts.

The payment support for second payments falsely stated that they were for real estate agents whom she listed, but in reality there were no other sales tied to the payments.

Cascante spent a “significant amount of the embezzled funds” for her own personal benefit. That included the purchase of a white 2021 Land Rover sport utility vehicle.

When the company did a review of its accounting in 2021, irregularities surfaced that prompted a review of Berkshire’s financial and banking records. Employees found a drastic increase in the expense of commissions, and when Cascante was confronted about the payments, she was “slow to respond or provided insufficient responses,” according to the plea agreement.

On Jan. 21, 2021, she transferred $20,397.83 from Berkshire’s account to one of her personal accounts. Cascante’s scheme cost Berkshire about $478,113.40, which was covered by its insurance, Bradley said.