Crime & Safety

City Woman Embezzled $560,000 From American Diabetes Association

Adrienne Carrington, 56, of Fredericksburg, could spend 20 years in prison for the crime.

A city woman faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for embezzling almost $570,000 from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and using the stolen money to buy fancy clothes and gamble.

Adrienne Carrington, 56, of Fredericksburg, pleaded guilty today to one count of wire fraud, according to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Neil H. MacBride and Assistant Director of the FBI's Washington Field Office James W. McJunkin. She will be sentenced on Jan. 20.

“Adrienne Carrington abused her position of trust to rip off half-a-million dollars from the American Diabetes Association in an extremely callous crime,” said MacBride. “Instead of helping the 25 million Americans affected by this serious disease, she stole the organization’s money and spent it gambling, buying fancy clothes, and dining out.” 

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McJunkin said that Carrington's nine-year scheme fueled her own spending habits. 

Carrington worked as a senior financial analyst before she became the ADA's treasury manager, which gave her access to the ADA's bank account and other accounting documents. From August 2001 to September 2010, Carrington made 133 unauthorized wire transfers to a separate account that she controlled that was in her daughter's name. She embezzled a total of $569,827.48. She transferred about $83,000 of it in one year in 2004 and $72,000 of it in 2010.

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To hide the crime, she would alter ADA accounting documents to make her unauthorized transfers to look like actual ADA expenses. For example, Carrington would make her transfers look like they were for postage charges for publications and she would alter the previously approved purchase request forms. Carrington used an ATM, check or debt card to withdraw the embezzled money and she used it to buy clothes, food at restaurants and at casinos.

The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case and Assistant United States Attorney Uzo Asonye is prosecutor.


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