LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — A Henderson woman pleaded guilty to embezzling over $26 million from her employer and purchasing high-end merchandise using the stolen funds.
Cynthia Marie Marabella was employed as a controller at a Las Vegas-based construction company. She managed accounts and received financial statements from various banks and credit card companies.
The fraud scheme
Marabella admitted that from Jan. 1, 2018, to about Feb. 28, 2025, she and her boyfriend, co-defendant William Keolanui Costa, devised a scheme to defraud her employer. They fraudulently duplicated bonus checks and deposited the checks into bank accounts controlled by Marabella and Costa.
They opened credit cards in other people’s names, made unauthorized charges, and then paid the bills with stolen funds. They provided false accounting records to the employer, created forged and false bank statements, and sent fictitious invoices from merchant accounts, then paid the invoices with stolen funds…