A dental corporate accounts manager is accused of taking more than $84,000 from customers’ bank accounts.
According to arrest warrants, Essence Boatwright, 40, an accounts manager with Carestream Dental in Cobb County, was supposed to be processing refunds for customers. Instead, she stole from them for years before she was finally caught, police said.
Investigators said Boatwright, who had access to customers' bank accounts and credit card information, took “refunds attached to Carestream’s customers’ accounts and applied the refunds to her personal…checking account” an average once or twice a month for more than 4.5 years.
In all, she’s accused of stealing $84,750.63 from dentists and dental practices and other customers--35 customers, in all.
Deputies arrested Boatwright on Dec. 7. She was released from the Cobb County jail on a $93,000 bond.
She told 11Alive’s Jon Shirek that she was not ready to comment about the charges, and had not yet hired an attorney.
Through a spokesperson, Carestream, which provides dental imaging technology to dentists, said that Boatwright hadn’t worked for the company for more than a year. The spokesperson said all of its customers have since received their refunds.
The spokesperson declined to comment about how Boatwright would have been able to get away with the alleged crimes as long investigators say she did, or whether new safeguards are in place to prevent thefts from customer accounts from now on.
