SAN ANTONIO – A former office manager of a San Antonio dermatology practice has been indicted on federal fraud and identity theft charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas.
Prosecutors said a federal grand jury indictment charges Patricia Ann Doucet, 74, with 10 counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of access device fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
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The indictment alleges that from July 2012 to February 2020, Doucet defrauded her former employer, the Dermatology & Laser Center of San Antonio. She is charged with defrauding the medical practice of nearly $350,000 from patient billings and employee profit-sharing accounts, prosecutors said.
The medical practice’s owner and operator organized and conducted a nonprofit educational symposium on regenerative medicine in San Antonio in 2012, according to the indictment.
A bank account was made to collect contributions for the symposium event. Prosecutors said the account was to be closed at the conclusion of the symposium, but Doucet, in her capacity as office manager, allegedly kept the account open without permission.
In July 2012, Doucet began to embezzle checks and cash paid to the dermatology practice by depositing them into the symposium account, the indictment alleges.
She allegedly altered a signature stamp utilized by the practice for its business account or fraudulently endorsed checks by forging the owner’s signature.
Prosecutors said Doucet also allegedly stole money from the practice’s profit-sharing account that was designed to automatically issue checks to cover taxes for the employee’s profit share.
Rather than directing those checks to the IRS, prosecutors said Doucet instead deposited those checks into the symposium account.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Doucet then allegedly “used the symposium account as her slush fund for international and domestic travel, property payments, meal purchases and other personal expenses on credit cards she fraudulently opened in the owner’s name.”
FBI agents arrested Doucet in Shreveport, Louisiana, on April 23, 2021. Prosecutors said she waived pre-trial detention Friday and agreed to remain in federal custody pending trial. No trial date has been scheduled.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “the bank fraud charge upon conviction calls for up to 30 years in federal prison. The wire fraud charges upon conviction call for up to 20 years in federal prison per count. The aggravated identity theft charges upon conviction call for a mandatory two years in federal prison, consecutive to any other sentence imposed.”
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