Millions Stolen From Employer Gets Woman 7 Years

A Bedminster woman was sentenced to seven years in state prison Wednesday after pleading guilty Nov. 8 to using her position at an insurance brokerage company to steal millions of dollars, according to Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa.

Kelly Roetto, 45, was sentenced to seven years in prison, and agreed to never obtain an insurance license in New Jersey.

This sentence, Chiesa said, was based on a Nov. 8 guilty plea to an accusation that charged Roetto with second-degree theft by unlawful taking, second-degree issuing bad checks and second degree misconduct by a corporate official.

At the time of the crime, Chiesa said, Roetto was serving as a controller for John A. Rocco Co., Inc., a now-defunct insurance brokerage firm in Florham Park. The company, Chiesa said, would obtain insurance policies on behalf of small- and medium-sized trucking, hauling, waste management, moving and recycling businesses in New Jersey and New York.

Part of the business, Chiesa said, required the company to arrange for businesses to finance the cost of insurance policies. Roetto, Chiesa said, was responsible for arranging this kind of financing and ensuring that borrowed funds were forwarded from the company's bank accounts to the insurance carriers or agents.

Roetto admitted in her guilty plea, Chiesa said, that betwen Jan. 1, 2008 and May 28, 2010, she used her position as the controller to steal between $3.8 and $5 million of financed proceeds. An investigation, Chiesa said, revealed that she capitalized on finance transactions with different schemes.

For example, Chiesa said, Roetto said that she knew the finance companies sent financed proceeds to her employer with the understanding that they would be used to purchase the insurance policies. She admitted, Chiesa said, that sometimes she failed to send this money to carriers and instead used it for other purposes.

In addition, Chiesa said, Roetto admitted that she caused unathorized finance agreements to be sent to the finance companies, and she used the proceeds obtained for unlawful purposes.

Finally, Chiesa said, Roetto admitted that she used her position to issue more than 200 bad checks for more than $2 million. Those checks, Chiesa said, were drawn on many of her employer's bank accounts at at least 10 banks.

Assigned to the case were Deputy Attorneys General Cheryl Maccaroni and T.J. Harker; Detective Matthew Armstrong; and analysts Theresa Worthington, Marie Beyer and Dalisha Carmichael.