Man Sentenced to 6 Months for Embezzling Nearly $100k from His Employer

NORFOLK, Va. — Jeffrey Lynn Stewart, 43, was convicted on Tuesday of three counts of felony embezzlement and sentenced to six months of home electronic monitoring after he pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $110,000 from his employer, a local healthcare company, by making unauthorized purchases.

As part of his job, Mr. Stewart was responsible for requisition of healthcare supplies, which he ordered through the procurement system. In March 2019, Mr. Stewart’s coworkers began noticing packages addressed to Mr. Stewart and delivered to their workplace that contained supplies irrelevant to their needs, including cameras and a garage organizer. Mr. Stewart’s coworkers looked up the packages by requisition number and found that he had in fact placed those unauthorized orders. Mr. Stewart’s manager also found additional items in his desk that had been ordered from the business’ vendors but were not relevant to their needs. Records of all Mr. Stewart’s purchases were pulled, and they showed Mr. Stewart had charged nearly $110,000 in unauthorized purchases to his employer’s account between August 2017 and March 2019. Many of those purchases were shipped across the country, presumably to secondary buyers associated with Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart’s managers confronted him about the unauthorized purchases, he admitted to buying many of the items for himself, and he was terminated.

In May 2023, the Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office secured indictments from a grand jury against Mr. Stewart for five counts of felony embezzlement.

On Tuesday, Mr. Stewart entered a plea agreement before Judge Jamilah D. LeCruise under which he agreed to plead guilty to three counts of felony embezzlement, pay $50,000 in restitution immediately to his former employer, and serve six months on home confinement while he works to pay the remainder of the restitution. An additional prison sentence of 14 years and six months are suspended on the conditions that Mr. Stewart pay the remainder of the restitution in installments and be of uniform good behavior for five years. The Commonwealth agreed to Mr. Stewart serving the active portion of his sentence through home electronic monitoring to allow him an opportunity to work toward paying back the money he owes.

“Businesses who choose to operate in Norfolk deserve our protection from being crime victims. If a business operates in Norfolk, and if their employees abuse their trust, my office and I will prosecute the employee and hold them accountable,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “Had Mr. Stewart not worked up front to make his employer whole, we would have argued for him to go to prison. We all deserve one justice system for all of our citizens, and we will continue to prosecute not just people who steal with guns but people who steal with pens and keyboards.”

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Caswell W. Richardson prosecuted Mr. Stewart’s case on behalf of the Commonwealth.

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