Embezzling From Waukesha County Business Earns Woman 1-Year Jail Term

A woman who admitted stealing thousands of dollars from a Pewaukee assisted-living facility was sentenced to one year in jail with work-release privileges.

Deborah Nowakowski, 55, of Oak Creek, also got five years probation and was ordered to pay her former boss nearly $67,000, plus another $50,000 to General Casualty Insurance, after she pleaded no contest to a felony charge of theft from a business setting (more than $10,000).

Investigators alleged she used company funds to purchase more than $81,000 worth of personal items while she managed Cecelia Place.

Police executing a search warrant on her home found items such as gift cards, vacuum cleaners, animal traps, Nintendo Wii games and hundreds of food items stocked in the basement, according to the criminal complaint.

The owner of the facility, Gerald Kallas, told the court in a victim impact statement that Nowakowski's actions almost drove him into bankruptcy, severely crippled the company's operations and denied the 20 seniors living in the residence benefits due to them.

Kallas said he was caring for his ailing wife at the time and could not monitor day-to-day operations. The thefts were first noticed in 2009, according to the complaint.

Nowakowski "betrayed the trust" given to her to manage the business in his absence, Kallas wrote.

Nowakowski, who began her sentence May 10, expressed remorse in an apology letter submitted to the court.

"My heart is heavy when I think of what I caused and the damage it caused you," she wrote in a letter directed to Kallas. "I am pleading with you to accept my apologies and please know that it comes from the heart.

"I am asking from one human being to another that if not today but one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me. If I could wind back the clocks and do it over again please know I would have done it all different ... I could have explored other avenues when things were needed and not taken them without permission."