Embezzler on lam for seven years jailed

BY A STAFF WRITER

WESTMONT, IL — Santhosh Thomas, an Indian American chief financial officer who admitted to embezzling $500,000 from a Westmont, Ill.-based software company, is being held without bond at DuPage County Jail in Illinois after he allegedly was on the lam for the past seven years.

Thomas, 51, was caught in April in the Houston area, according to DuPage County Circuit Court records. His last-known residence was in Bensenville, Ill.

He was brought from the Harris County, Texas, sheriff’s office to the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton, Ill., on April 27, according to court records.
Thomas was the CFO at Collaborative Learning, an educational software and consulting company in Terrace, Ill., and, according to DuPage County prosecutors, used his position to embezzle $471,000 from the company over an 11-month period in 2006 and 2007.

About $59,000 of that went to the company’s COO Emmanuel Reyes, the man who hired Thomas, prosecutors said.

The two men submitted invoices to fake vendors they had created between February 2006 and January 2007, and cashed the checks made out to those vendors, prosecutors said.

Authorities said the pair also used company credit cards to bankroll unauthorized casino gambling trips to Las Vegas and to purchase electronics,

Thomas faces a potential 15-year prison term on the theft charge and up to three years in prison if convicted of a companion felony charge of violation of bail bond.