A woman charged with embezzlement for over $100,000 from the USS Midway Museum where she was formerly employed was sentenced to the county jail for a year and received probation for another five years. 

Veronica Gonzalez Monay, 35, a resident of Chula Vista entered a guilty plea on Aug. 26 in San Diego Superior Court to counts of grand theft and to charges of grand theft and taking things that did not belong to her. Her actions could have granted her up to four years in prison.  

Defense attorney Gretchen von Helms reported yesterday that Gonzalez fully complied  with investigators requests and was regretful about her actions. 

Von Helms stated that her client was a single mother trying to make ends meet and raise her daughter when she stole from the company. The daughter, who is now 12, is living with the mother’s ex-husband. 

Yesterday, Gonzalez gave the court the last child-support payment she was given, a check for $154, as a means of trying to pay off what she had wrongfully taken.  

Judge Timothy Weathers took note of Gonzalez’s regret, her early admittance of guilt and “insignificant” former criminal record, but paid less attention to her personal background. 

“No personal problem really excuses taking that kind of money,” he stated. Deputy District Attorney James Teh has informed that Gonzalez worked for three years as an accounting manager at the aircraft carrier museum and robbed the museum of a total of 21 cash deposits amounting to $111,000.

Gonzalez gave up her position at the museum when the head financial officer told her she had constantly failed to have the money match up, and gave her only two days to find another job, the prosecutor stated. 

Authorities later attained information through an external audit that directed them to Gonzalez.