Nice necklace

Ahahahahahah

Will she have to pay it all back?

No, no she can just keep it as a bonus...

With her taste for luxury, how come the ESP950 are built with so cheap materials? Sad story for people involved.

Are we boned on the lifetime warranties now?

If it's greed it's not a disease, but that weird attitude of stocking her purchases unused, keeping the tags and all that, drives me to think she's on a maniac status. I'd give her the benefit of doubt nonetheless, and would allow her a medical evaluation. Whether she's not sick, go to jail

I would've had a hard time untagging and storing 20 million dollars worth of merchandise too, if you know what I mean.

If it's greed it's not a disease, but that weird attitude of stocking her purchases unused, keeping the tags and all that, drives me to think she's on a maniac status. I'd give her the benefit of doubt nonetheless, and would allow her a medical evaluation. Whether she's not sick, go to jail

Have you considered the possibility that she was thinking about opening her own boutique somewhere? Turning some of her ill gotten gains into hard and fast cash? Notice that she was spending money like crazy but the reports don't say anything about how much (if any) of the embezzled funds were still held in cash by her.

My guess is that her bag of tricks did not include any forms of direct payments to herself or accounts held in her name. She figured she could get away with everything so long as all transactions looked like legit payments (to whichever dipshits in Koss who were rubber stamping their names as the second signature).

So getting the money out of Koss was no problem, but it went directly to vendors and thus went to her as goods and services, not as cash. My guess is that she had side operations going to convert the stuff she was buying back into cash for her eventual retirement home(s).

To be in the position she was in, she would have to be a highly qualified and intelligent person, not to mention a real charmer as well. She misused her position of trust for a ridiculous level of personal gain, way beyond comfort needs and such. No, she's not like the bus driver who takes coins into his hand and slips some of them into his pocket to help pay for his sick child's hospital care because his company refuses to provide adequate medical coverage.

She's a white collar criminal who deserves to rot in a filthy jail.

She a white collar criminal who deserves to rot in a filthy jail.

She's a woman, prominent in the local community and (as we've already seen) probably has a fair shot at a diminished culpability defense. IANAL, but probably Club Fed, at worst?

Edited December 27, 200916 yr by Hopstretch

She's a cunning little fox, as seductive as she is manipulative.

Er, what were we talking about here?

I'd like to take this moment to express how glad I am that we have Wayne around.

Embezzlement of this magnitude is tough to hide, and hiding it was a full-time job she apparently was good at. It looks like she possessed enough consistent cognitive organization to pull it off without raising concerns, meaning she held the rest of her life together enough to not have people suspect. I've spent a lot of time with people in various stages of mania. Out of control shopping, gambling, drinking, lack of impulse control, etc. goes hand in hand with mania, but mania is a cluster of symptoms that are pretty obvious to people that know an individual well, even when mild, and although not inconceivable no one suspected something was wrong, it would have been much more difficult to sustaina multi-year period without other areas of her life going equally out of control. Apparently, it was an AMEX employee that busted her, not someone who knew her. I wonder how many people close to her are going to say they were surprised. I also don't think it was greed alone, as the shopping (warehouse room of clothing with tags still on) was just too nutso, and definitely a sign of addictive behavior. If it were just an episode or two, I'd say she was just sick, but the amount of dedicated effort needed to sustain her theft makes it just plain criminal, even if she suffers from clinical disorders.

Nice response, Vicki. I hadn't read it before making my last post. I'll be curious to learn whether all of the clothes were in her size or if she was busy buying up all sorts of sizes (presumably as "gifts" to her family and friends, but in reality as inventory for her own store). But perhaps I'm focusing too much on cash, because that's the last thing she would ever need so long as she had an endless checkbook at Koss.

About the addictive behavior, I guess she loves designer clothes as much as some of us love high end headphones. Too bad she couldn't just chill out with a pair of KSC-75's every now and then and let all of her wants and needs float away.

I'd like to take this moment to express how glad I am that we have Wayne around.

Oh ya, baby... I like it when you lick my...

Wait a minute! Where was I again?

Probably the best option for Koss now would be to open up their own boutique designer clothes shop and stock it with all the stuff she bought.

How the hell you blow that much money in Wisconsin? Have you guys seen Wisconsin? All they have is beer, cheese curds, deer hunting, snow, and the Green Bay Packers.

How the hell you blow that much money in Wisconsin? Have you guys seen Wisconsin? All they have is beer, cheese curds, deer hunting, snow, and the Green Bay Packers.

Funny post! I hear what you're saying. You can only buy so many cheap T-shirts at the Dells.

But it seems to me that the way she did it wouldn't require her ever-presence on the job. It wasn't like a lapping or kiting scheme where you had to continually cover your tracks. You just send out large sums of money every so often to settle up monstrous invoices that you've racked up at bridal boutiques and such. So I'm sure she had plenty of time to travel and live it up.

What gets me is the fact that nobody at her workplace seemed to notice that she was wearing new designer clothes every day of the week (presumably). She was probably surrounded by men who don't know the first thing about women's clothing and never once looked at her feet (and thus wouldn't see the constant parade of new shoes).

Also, it's not like the clothes probably didn't cost thousands of dollars each.

How the hell you blow that much money in Wisconsin? Have you guys seen Wisconsin? All they have is beer, cheese curds, deer hunting, snow, and the Green Bay Packers.

...and lakes. Lots of lakes.

Funny post! I hear what you're saying. You can only buy so many cheap T-shirts at the Dells.

But it seems to me that the way she did it wouldn't require her ever-presence on the job. It wasn't like a lapping or kiting scheme where you had to continually cover your tracks. You just send out large sums of money every so often to settle up monstrous invoices that you've racked up at bridal boutiques and such. So I'm sure she had plenty of time to travel and live it up.

What gets me is the fact that nobody at her workplace seemed to notice that she was wearing new designer clothes every day of the week (presumably). She was probably surrounded by men who don't know the first thing about women's clothing and never once looked at her feet (and thus wouldn't see the constant parade of new shoes).

That's ok - lipstick on a pig.

She's a white collar criminal who deserves to rot in a filthy jail.

Well said. Most corporate criminals never receive the punishment that they deserve. And of course the very best never get caught, that's what the lobbyists are for!

What struck me as saddest about this whole thing is how the other Koss workers must feel: All those years of work just to have it all being thrown away the whole time.

Little bit of schadenfreude here for Wayne and any other accounting policy aficionados.

In a 2007 interview with Family Business magazine, Michael Koss complained about the burdens of being a public company. Koss became public through an indirect route several decades ago, when founder John Koss purchased a small public company in New York that was bankrupt. Koss kept the Nasdaq listing and changed the trading name to Koss.

In the interview, Koss said the new costs associated with Sarbanes-Oxley were particularly galling to his family, who "pride themselves on being good stewards of their company."

"We've always complied with government regulations," Koss told Family Business. "So it's annoying having to deal with this extra layer of bureaucracy. Small companies like ours are spending hours in auditing committees that would be better spent on strategic planning."

That's ok - lipstick on a pig.

I would've had a hard time untagging and storing 20 million dollars worth of merchandise too, if you know what I mean.

Ahahahahahah

Will she have to pay it all back?

Ok, just as a cautionary note: guys, this is not how you get established on head-case. Please reread your welcome pm.

What struck me as saddest about this whole thing is how the other Koss workers must feel: All those years of work just to have it all being thrown away the whole time.

What strikes me is the colossal ineptitude this shows on the part of management. Internal audit? Risk management? Was she the CFO?

This makes me sad - and not just because I love my ESP950. People suck.

Wow, that is just too weird. I find it most incredible that the company knew of nothing. How on earth can you be frauding THAT amount of money?? I find it hard to believe she was the only one in on it.

You know I bought a pair of Koss Cheese-Phones and was terribly disappointed in their sound quality after a ton of glowing reviews. I think she may have been quietly cutting down on material quality in order to cover up her embezzling

I'm just glad that she has been caught by someone at Amex, and hopefully will be brought to justice.

It certainly must be disheartening for everyone in the company that work so hard and here the VP of Finance is embezelling millions of the companys hard earned profits.

Maybe they will need to raise the price of the KSC75s to $25 a pair.