New details on how a Tri-City vet tech allegedly stole nearly half a million
A Tri-Cities woman is accused of stealing more than $220,000 in cash in a single year at the height of her suspected embezzlement scheme to fund her lifestyle.
In all, Kennewick police investigators believe Kristina Ripplinger stole at least $470,000 from Horse Heaven Hills Pet Urgent Care over a four-year period.
More than 90% of the identified missing funds were taken in 2021 and 2022.
The newly released court documents claim that at times she was depositing up to $20,000 each month in cash into her personal bank account, after allegedly cooking the books to show the cash had been refunded to customers.
The documents say the thefts continued as recently as this month, with security video footage reportedly capturing Ripplinger taking money out of a cash deposit bag and placing it in her purse in her desk at the clinic.
Ripplinger was arrested Tuesday and was booked into the Benton County jail on investigation of first-degree theft. Her bail was set at $40,000, and was released Thursday afternoon.
During the initial court appearance, prosecutors told the judge the $470,000 that’s missing is only what the CPA accounting firm was able to identify as stolen or embezzled.
Investigation
The theft came to light after the business owner, veterinarian Sheila Erickson, hired a CPA firm to examine their finances to determine how they could become more financially successful given their levels of service, according to court documents.
What the CPA firm JF Bell Group found while reconciling bank statements with cash invoices is that deposits weren’t lining up, leading them to discover that at least $470,000 in cash receipts had gone missing since 2019.
On March 27, the CPA firm provided a report showing that in 2019 about $2,500 was missing, in 2020 that amount increased to $29,400 and in 2021 it jumped to $199,058, said the documents.
Last year, they found $221,469 missing, and that nearly $18,000 was gone this year.
Ripplinger, a licensed veterinarian technician, was the veterinarian practice manager and was the sole person handling cash deposits, according to investigators.
She also was the person responsible for reports reconciling cash deposits with invoices.
Other than the owner, Ripplinger was the only person with access to a keyed cash lockbox and was the only person who deposited the cash unless she was out sick or on vacation.
The owner then provided investigators with video from April 5 of this year showing Ripplinger concealing the cash bag behind her desk, taking money out and placing it into her purse, according to court documents.
On Tuesday, Kennewick detectives contacted Ripplinger at the clinic and took her to the police station to be interviewed about the theft.
Investigators say she agreed to speak with them, and admitted to taking money but would not say how much. Only that it was “more than $5,000 and much more than she thought,” said the affidavit.
Investigators say she was using ATMs to deposit as much as $4,000 at a time into her personal bank account, and up to $20,000 a month.
She reportedly told investigators that she began taking cash about two years ago with the intent of using it for personal expenses.
She said she intended to pay it back using her and her husband’s income, which investigators say was a combined $10,000 a month, but “it got out of control,” according to the documents.
When investigators told her the full amount the CPA firm was able to identify, she denied responsibility for that amount.
Investigators obtained a warrant for her bank statements and showed that the money was used to maintain expenses and lifestyle purchases the couple could not have otherwise covered.
The statements showed consistent cash deposits of $20,000 per month, in addition to their combined income of about $10,000 per month, but the account consistently ended the month with a minimal balance, according to the documents.
Investigators say she admitted to making the $4,000 deposits multiple times per month with the stolen cash.
She also admitted to the theft caught on camera and to altering the computer accounting program the business used to indicate customers had received refunds to account for the missing cash, as an attempt to balance their books.
