LAGUNA BEACH — A 47-year-old Tustin woman, who embezzled $65,000 from Laguna Nursery, pleaded guilty to 38 felony counts of forgery and identity theft, police said Tuesday.
Laguna Beach fraud detectives began investigating Christine Black in March 2016, when she was suspected of embezzling money from the nursery, where she was an office manager, said Sgt. Jim Cota.
Detectives found that Black had devised and carried out a scheme to get money from Laguna Nursery by issuing checks to herself and reporting the checks as payments to various vendors, Cota said.
The investigation also found that Black was on probation for a similar case in Rockingham County, N.C. In that case, Black worked for Sharon K. Hopper Fine Gardening and, in a similar scheme, embezzled about $100,000, Cota said.
On July 5, Black pleaded guilty to 38 felony counts of forgery and identity theft in Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach. She was sentenced to 16 months in jail, restitution, and is scheduled to be extradited to North Carolina.