Wayne woman pleads guilty to embezzling Elmhurst firm

A $200,000 salary apparently wasn't enough for Teresa Wolande.

Prosecutors said the Wayne woman embezzled more than $40,000 from her company to take vacations, pay taxes and have work done to her Mercedes-Benz.

On Wednesday, Wolande pleaded guilty to forgery and theft charges stemming from her time as chief financial officer for Superior Air-Ground Ambulance Service in Elmhurst. In exchange for her plea, she received 30 months of probation and 120 days in jail.

Assistant State's Attorney Helen Kapas said Wolande wrote unauthorized checks from company accounts and forged supportive documents throughout 2009 and 2010 while pulling down a $200,000-a-year salary.

Some of the checks paid for taxes Wolande owed, Kapas said, while others funded vacations in Vail, Colo., and Captiva Island, Fla. Wolande also used company money for personal legal bills and for automotive work, prosecutors said.

An accountant auditing the ambulance company finances uncovered the thefts after noticing discrepancies in the way checks were written in several instances.

Officials also discovered a forged letter on company letterhead Wolande had submitted showing she completed a community service sentence from a prior DUI case by volunteering at local high schools and colleges. The fictitious letter, prosecutors said, was submitted to a judge as evidence she spoke with youths about careers in emergency medical service.

Superior's president, David Hill, said he considered Wolande a friend and had given her work in years past as an insurance broker. He said she began an “escalating pattern” of theft shortly after being named chief financial officer in early 2009.

“It's so hard to understand why someone would do this,” he said. “Even to this day, I just scratch my head.”

Wolande, who also goes by the last name Pahl, lives in a home valued at $4.8 million earlier this year, according to the St. Charles Township assessor. Hill said he was “baffled” when he learned she had pilfered funds.

Company officials said Superior started as a small company 50 years ago and grew to have about 1,600 employees, who provide service from Rockford to South Bend.

“This is the end of a sad chapter for Superior,” said Summer Heil, general counsel to the company. “We are proud that through this recession we have not laid off a single employee. (Yet) a top trusted (executive) took money that could have been used to make it a better company.”

Wolande, who faced up to seven years in prison if convicted at trial, plans to serve her jail term in periodic increments beginning next month, prosecutors said. She has already paid $42,000 in restitution.