MACON, Ga. — A mother and son from Macon are accused of illegally siphoning millions from a Bibb County company over a 10 year period, according to an indictment filed in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Georgia.
Eva Rebecca Wells was an office manager for Mid-Georgia Sales, a Macon-based company that distributed sodas and beers. Over a 10 year period, Eva and her son, Billy Wells, are accused of stealing $3.6 million from the company.
Billy worked in the company's IT and sales department.
As part of her job, Eva was in charge of making the weekly payroll for the company, the indictment said, which also gave her a very powerful tool: the President/CEO's signature stamp.
The indictment, filed back in February in the U.S. District Court Middle District of Georgia, accuses Eva of a scheme where she would illegally write millions of dollars in unauthorized checks payable to her and her son.
All of the checks were "made without the knowledge and authorization of the President/CEO," the indictment read.
The funds, which came from the company's general expense accounts, were then deposited or cashed by the pair, the indictment says.
The first year they started with $6,325 worth of checks to her son at the end of 2008, the records show.
Then, the next year, Eva is accused of writing just over $135,400 worth of checks for her son and over $25,000 for herself, the indictment says.
They would continue to do this year after year with various different figures.
In 2013, Eva had $36,000 in checks written payable to her, and Billy had almost $270,000, the indictment read. In 2010, it says there were around $25,000 in checks written for Eva and over $135,000 for Billy.
In 2018, they wrote $566,000 worth of checks payable to Billy, which was the largest total written throughout the alleged scheme.
All told, $3.4 million in checks were made payable to Billy and just under $222,000 were made payable to Eva, the U.S. Attorney's Office alleges.
All told, they say the first checks were written at the very end of 2008, and it would extend all the way until May 2019 when the last check was written.
The pair face one count of conspiracy to defraud a financial institution. On top of that, Eva is facing four counts of bank fraud and Billy is facing 14 counts of bank fraud for the checks they are accused of depositing.
If convicted on those charges, they face a maximum of 30 years in prison and face a $1,000,0000 fine.
Billy also faces four counts of "making and subscribing to a false return" for failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in income on his tax returns. For that charge, he faces at most three years in prison and a $100,000 fine.