WABASHA. Minn. – Nobody seriously expects that a Wabasha bookkeeper, Sharon Schmalzriedt, will ever repay the $3.7 million she embezzled from a Lewiston company – even though a judge has ordered her to return the money. The problem: She neither kept the money nor spent it on anything tangible and recoverable. Instead she passed it all on to an online scammer who pretended be in love with her and who has proven impossible to track. Meanwhile, her former employer, National Chemical of Lewiston, has floundered in bankruptcy caused by the $3.7 million loss that went undetected over 2-1/2 years. “It’s a large, eye-popping number,” Wabasha County prosecutor Matthew Stinson said in a Rochester Post Bulletin interview. He’s sure the scam was the largest ever in Wabasha County, population 21,000. And perhaps also in neighboring Winona County, population 49,000, where National Chemical is located. It was in April that Judge Christopher Neisen in Wabasha sentenced Schmalzriedt to five years probation. Normally, Stinson said, an embezzler would work out a repayment schedule with a probation officer. The repayment would be over the probation period and within the embezzler’s income. That, he said, would be $750,000 per year for Schmalzriedt, who now is 62 years old. The median annual income in Wabasha County is less than $48,000. So where’s the stolen money? Schmalzriedt’s online amour, who called himself Erik Lockwood, has it. Where’s he? Somewhere in Africa, according to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which has tied to track him down. The trail has gone cold. Very cold.
Earlier: $3.7 million embezzler excused from prison time
Earlier: Embezzler offers deal for $3.7 million Lewiston theft
Earlier: Wabasha bookkeeper blamed for $3.7 million embezzlement