Karen Duhon indicted for allegedly stealing over $3 million from Capital Management

A federal grand jury has indicted former Capital Management Consultants' bookkeeper Karen Duhon and accused her of stealing over $3 million from the Morgan City-based company during a 15-year period, U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph of the Western District of Louisiana said in a news release.

The grand jury returned a five-count indictment Thursday in Lafayette against Duhon, 64, of Morgan City, charging her with one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud, the release said. The Daily Review has not confirmed whether Duhon has an attorney yet representing her against the federal charges.

The indictment alleges that Duhon, who was the bookkeeper at Capital Management Consultants Inc., a family-owned investment holdings company located in Morgan City, stole more than $3 million from January 1999 through March 2014.

Duhon wrote fraudulent checks to herself, which were drawn on CMCI’s bank account and deposited those checks into bank accounts owned by her and her husband, the release said.

In order to conceal these fraudulent payments from the CMCI account, Duhon made false accounting entries into CMCI’s records. During this time, Duhon also assisted certain family members with their personal finances. She used funds from a family member’s personal brokerage account at Oppenheimer and Co. to make payments on her American Express accounts. As a result of Duhon’s fraudulent activities, she embezzled $3,194,920, Joseph said.

If convicted, Duhon faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a $250,000 fine. The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas F. Phillips is prosecuting the case. The charges in the indictment are only accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

In September 2017, Duhon's husband, Armond Duhon was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he was found guilty in June 2017 in Louisiana's 16th Judicial District Court on charges in connection with the case. Judge Keith Comeaux of the 16th district sentenced Armond Duhon after finding him guilty of 206 counts of theft over $1,500, 15 counts of theft $500-$1,500, two counts of money laundering and one count of racketeering in the case. Armond Duhon had waived his trial by jury and chose a trial by judge.

Comeaux also ordered Armond Duhon to pay $2.328 million in restitution to Capital Management along with $200,000 for court costs.

Capital Management Spokesman Marwan Mohey-El-Dien spoke about what Thursday's federal indictment of Karen Duhon means to the Guarisco family, which owns the company. Mohey-El-Dien is married to Laura Guarisco whose father Peter V. Guarisco founded Capital Management in 1982. Peter Guarisco died in 2005.

Despite the amount of time that justice is taking to prevail in the case, "the Guarisco family and myself, we believe in the system," Mohey-El-Dien said.

"We again feel tormented and heartbroken for the events that basically put Morgan City and citizens of Morgan City in the path of this case," he said.

Regardless of how much time Karen and Armond Duhon may spend in prison, it "is not enough justice for what they have done to Peter V., the Guarisco family and the community," Mohey-El-Dien said.

Company officials and the Guariscos alleged in a December 2014 lawsuit that former company CPA, the late James Scott Tucker, was the mastermind behind a scheme to steal as much as $30 million dating possibly to the early 1980s. And they and their father placed absolute trust in Tucker to run the company. They also alleged that Tucker and Karen Duhon had a romantic relationship.

Members of the Guarisco family discovered the alleged theft after Tucker's death in January 2014. The 16th Judicial District attorney filed a bill of information against defendants in the case collectively charging them with 674 counts of theft of $1,500 or more, 100 counts of money laundering and one count of racketeering. Prosecutors filed the original bill in June 2015 and added more theft charges in October 2016.

The defendants charged in the 16th district were Armond Duhon, Karen Duhon; the Duhons’ company, A-B-C Siding Co. of Morgan City Inc.; Capital Management's former assistant bookkeeper Donnasue Peveto; and Nelson-Tucker LLC, which was owned by Tucker. However, each defendant wasn’t named in every count.

Karen Duhon has yet to go to trial on the charges filed against her in the 16th district.

Peveto died in March 2016 after pleading guilty in December 2015 to one count of racketeering and 123 counts of theft over $1,500 and agreeing to testify against her co-defendants.