Twin Cities medical device financial officer off to prison for stealing $900K

A onetime financial officer for a west-metro medical device company has been sentenced for stealing more than $900,000 from her employer and using some of the money for vacations, clothes and silver bullion and for financing a business venture on the side.

Karen J. Breyette, 54, of St. Bonifacius, was sentenced in Hennepin County District Court to 5⅓ years in prison, followed by supervised release after she pleaded guilty last week to 10 counts of theft by swindle. The court also ordered her to pay $924,770.78 in restitution.

At sentencing, Breyette apologized to PenRad Technologies officials, who were in attendance. She pledged to begin a new and better chapter in her life upon her release from prison.

Breyette was hired by PenRad, of Buffalo, Minn., in January 2008 as controller/bookkeeper, and she began stealing five months later. She used the company credit card to pay for hotels while on vacation, and buy clothes and other personal items.

She also allegedly used the company checkbook to write four $4,000 checks to herself and another check for more than $6,000 to pay a company for silver bullion bars, which were recovered at her house.

But the largest amounts were embezzled through the payroll system, according to the criminal complaint. Breyette would record the correct amount of salary for her paycheck in the payroll ledger but then transfer more than that into her account electronically.

In 2011 and 2012, she allegedly entered her salary correctly but did not move the money into her bank account.

Breyette also is accused of making wire transfers from PenRad's account to other bank accounts. Two of the transfers, for a total of $42,000, were sent to Gentle Green Cleaning, a Savage company in which she was a part owner until this spring.

PenRad, founded in 1995, provides software tracking and reporting systems for mammography, radiology and vascular lab work.