Former Laguna Nursery employee sentenced to prison for embezzlement

A former employee of a Laguna Beach landscaping and garden business pleaded guilty last week to 38 felony counts of forgery and identify theft, Laguna Beach police said in a release issued Tuesday.

Christine Black embezzled more than $65,000 from Laguna Nursery, where she worked for three years as an office manager and bookkeeper, by issuing checks to herself and reporting the checks as payments for various vendors, according to police, which launched an investigation in March 2016.

Black, 47, was sentenced to 16 months in jail and restitution and will be extradited to North Carolina, where she was on probation for a similar case, the release said.

Black worked for Sharon K. Hopper Fine Gardening and, in a similar scheme, embezzled about $100,000, Laguna police said.

Laguna Nursery owner Ruben Flores said he became suspicious when Black did not want him to hire an assistant for her because it would have been another set of eyes tracking revenue and expenses.

“You never know,” Flores said. “She was beloved by everybody.”

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Twitter: @AldertonBryce