The former bookkeeper for Interiorscapes, a small Birmingham-based business that offers plant services to a range of companies, has pleaded guilty to running a multi-year embezzlement scheme, announced U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peeples.

Tammi Spangenberg Turner, 60, of Morris, pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. District Court Judge Karon O. Bowdre to wire fraud.

According to the plea agreement, Turner served as the bookkeeper at Interiorscapes from about 2015 until late 2021. Her duties included overseeing accounts payable and receivable, payroll, and entries in the company’s QuickBooks accounting software.

During her tenure, Turner used a company credit card to pay tens of thousands of dollars of personal expenses. Turner hid her conduct by creating false entries in QuickBooks, writing personal checks to the company purportedly as reimbursement for the charges, keeping copies of those checks in the company records, but never depositing the checks in the company’s operating accounts. These unauthorized and unreimbursed charges totaled more than $94,000.

The maximum penalty for wire fraud is twenty years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and supervised release of up to three years.