A Crown Point woman was sentenced to 46 months Wednesday for embezzling $150,000 from an East Chicago firm where she once worked, court filings show.
At the time, she was facing another federal case for defrauding a different company.
Loraine Duchscher, 52, pleaded guilty in October to wire fraud. She has to repay $150,000 in restitution.
The East Chicago firm was only listed as “Company A” in federal court filings that manufactures parts and services equipment for “various industrial sectors.” Duchscher worked as an office manager from April 2021 to October 2023.
Documents allege Duchscher waited a few months after she was hired, before convincing the company to switch to a new payroll system that she knew better.
In court filings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Lupa alleged she violated her release conditions in the prior case by not disclosing to the court that she got a new job and not telling the employer about her history of stealing from the workplace.
Duchscher was a “serial con artist” who “repeatedly victimized” local small businesses, he wrote.
Defense lawyer Roxanne Mendez Johnson detailed her client’s various longtime personal struggles, including with drugs, in court documents.
In a letter submitted to U.S. District Judge Gretchen Lund, Duchscher said she had changed for the better while in prison for the previous case.
“I wouldn’t even steal a penny on the ground now,” Duchscher wrote.
At the East Chicago company, she allegedly boosted her paychecks and gave herself extra vacation pay while depositing the money in an Austin, Texas-based bank, documents show.
She used the extra money for “cosmetic procedures, travel, restaurants, entertainment, cash withdrawals, and a vehicle loan,” prosecutors alleged.
The plastic surgery included “Botox, lip fillers, and complex hair and spa treatments,” Lupa wrote.
The East Chicago company’s president, who is not named, wrote her “dishonesty seeped into the fabric of our operation and indirectly with our clientele.”
The cascading effect affected its “‘ability to function as it had’ for more than 50 years,” Lupa wrote, partially quoting the man.
“(It) cannot be overstated how compromised and jeopardized my family and I have been,” the president wrote. “(Her) transgression continues and affects me and the business every day.”
Duchscher was sentenced to nearly four years in January 2024 for stealing $490,000 from another job for vacations, drugs and plastic surgery.
At the time, she worked as an office manager for Pyro Shield in Crown Point from March 2017 to December 2019. She had “unsupervised access” to its cash, financial records and payroll.
She used the money for “lavish vacations” and “gratuitous” plastic surgery. She booked flights to San Diego and Las Vegas and a California rental home, and bought Universal Studios tickets and clothes.
She bought “thousands” in cocaine for herself and a boyfriend in that case, documents allege.
It took a “heavy toll” on the company. Pyro Shield sued her in Lake Superior Court. A judge awarded nearly $1 million in damages in 2020.
During that case, Duchscher allegedly gave “two fake doctor’s notes” to the court to delay her sentencing, Lupa alleged in filings. She also “lied” to the FBI who came to arrest her after that, denying who she was, he wrote.
At a third prior job, court documents also allege Duchscher took $53,000 by charging to a Munster sales company’s credit card or via cash advances while she worked as their bookkeeper in 2014 and 2015.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
