She’s charged with embezzling a cool mil from one of the city’s premier architecture firms – but now a disgraced bookkeeper is crying poverty.
Catherine Arroyo, 49, of Queens, has asked to have a free, court-appointed lawyer at her side as she’s arraigned in Manhattan today on charges she stole $988,996 from her former bosses at Voorsanger Architects.
Prosecutors say Arroyo filched a fortune to cover herself in furs and jewelry and take her also-charged boyfriend on cruises and vacations – using some of the most ham-fisted methods in the book.
Arroyo, they claim, merely whited-out the actual payee on company checks and instead made them payable to her own creditors.
She also waited until her bosses went traveling, and then used the firm’s blank emergency checks to pay personal bills, prosecutors said. Then she’d allegedly doctor the records to cover her tracks.
Much of the stolen money paid her large bills, including $678,021 to American Express, according to prosecutors.
The West 38th Street firm has designed museums, homes and offices nationwide, and is locally renowned for its efforts identifying Ground Zero artifacts to be saved for a future memorial, and for the redesign of the Asia Society and Museum.
“This crime was a stunning revelation perpetrated by a person we trusted,” said CEO Bartholomew Voorsanger.
Embezzlement happens “all too often,” but firms can be reluctant to alert the authorities for fear of bad publicity, he added.
Arroyo started stealing only two weeks after Voorsanger hired her in January 2001, prosecutors said.
She left the firm of her own accord in late 2005, and the new bookkeeper discovered the alleged thefts.
If convicted, Arroyo faces up to 15 years in prison, as does her boyfriend, Hermes Rivera, 51, of The Bronx.