Karen Duhon enters guilty plea in Capital Management fraud case

Karen Duhon, accused of being part of a fraud scheme that bilked more than $3 million from Morgan City's Capital Management Consultants Inc., entered a guilty plea Thursday to one count of a five-count federal indictment as part of a plea agreement.

Duhon pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Lafayette to the single count of mail fraud. She could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, and will be required to repay nearly $3.2 million. Sentencing is set for Dec. 27 before U.S. District Judge Maurice Hicks in Lafayette.

A federal grand jury indicted Duhon in December 2018 on one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of mail fraud.

Duhon worked as a bookkeeper for Capital Management from October 1973 to August 2014. Peter Guarisco had a controlling interest in the company until his death in 2005, when control passed to his five children.

According to the indictment, in January 1999 Duhon began writing checks to herself for more than her salary and had them signed by another employee who was a named signatory for Capital Management. Earlier court cases identified the signatory as James Scott Tucker.

Duhon also falsified the company's books to conceal the fact that she wrote the checks, the indictment said.

Duhon deposited the money into accounts owned by her and her husband. In all, the checks totaled about $3.2 million.

Also, the indictment said, Tucker and Duhon sometimes helped the Guarisco heirs with their personal finances. Between November 2012 and January 2014, Duhon had access to checks from the account belonging to one of the heirs.

Duhon used the account to pay $127,920 on her American Express cards, the indictment said, and in December 2013, she mailed a check for about $8,700 to American Express. That was allegation on which the mail fraud count was based.

Duhon's husband, Armond Duhon, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after his conviction in 16th Judicial District Court on more than 200 theft counts in relation to the Capital Management fraud case.

Donnasue Peveto, Scott Tucker's assistant, pleaded guilty in the 16th JDC in 2015 to 123 theft counts in cases alleging more than $9 million illegally taken from Capital Management.

Tucker died in 2014. Peveto died in 2016.

Peter Guarisco's heirs took Tucker's estate to court to recover the missing money in a lawsuit that was settled in 2017.

"The wheels of justice turn very slowly," Capital Management spokesman Marwan Mohey-El-Dien said Friday. "But in the end, justice is served."

Karen Duhon has expressed no remorse, Mohey-El-Dien said, and the family will ask for a strict sentence.

"Had Mrs. Duhon come forward immediately and admitted what she had done and helped us find the assets, we would not have taken an adverse position," Mohey-El-Dien said. "We would have helped her."