WABASHA, Minn. – A Wabasha woman was charged with embezzling $3.7 million from a Lewiston company, National Chemicals, for which she was a bookkeeper who worked from home. The company has filed for bankruptcy, which has been blamed on the embezzlement, according to the criminal complaint against Sharon Ann Schmalzriedt, 61. The complaint, in Wabasha County court, alleges that Schmalzriedt stole the money over 30 months ending in March this year when she was fired. When bookkeeping problems were suspected by the owner of National Chemicals, Murl Landman, he brought in outside experts to check on unexpected losses, financial inconsistencies, and payments to unaffiliated organizations.
Secondary theft charged
The complaint says Schmalzriedt separately stole $17,000 from a vulnerable adult in her care.
Why? “Online love”
Investigators said that Schmalzriedt told them that the embezzled funds were sent to a man she never met but with whom she had an online relationship. This guy, Eric Lockwood he called himself, claimed he needed money to get access to $7 million for work he did in Dubai, Schmalzriedt said. First, she said, she burned through her own money, then turned to “borrowing” secretly from her employer, National Chemicals, 35 miles away in Lewiston. She said this Lockwood promised to repay her back so she could restore the missing funds. Investigators called it a scam.
Schmalzriedt. Says an online relationship that led her to embezzle.
National Chemicals. In Lewiston at 135 Rice Street off U.S. Highway 14.
National Chemicals profile
The company was founded in 1947 in Winona as a packager of chemical products for beverage and food production. Its plant was at 108 Liberty Street across from the Polish Museum. In 2011, needing more space, the company doubled its capacity by purchasing a former Herff Jones school yearbook-publishing plant in Lewiston. The business expanded with the growth of micro-breweries, home wine-making, and coffee shops, all of which need antimicrobial sanitizing products of the custom-mixed sort in which National Chemicals specializes. The company has been family-owned for three generations.