Woman charged with embezzling $41K from Fairfield employer

A Stratford woman was arrested at her home Monday on a warrant charging her with embezzling $41,000 from a former employer in Fairfield.

Gwendolyn L. Varhalak, 47, of Broadbridge Avenue, was charged with first-degree larceny and second-degree forgery. Police received a complaint in July from her former employer, Britt-Air, 750 Post Road.

According to the warrant, Varhalak had worked there as a secretary prior to being fired. The new secretary discovered that Varhalak created duplicate payroll checks and also other checks made out to cash and herself totaling $41,000 from September 2010 until this July, police said. She would also apply fraudulent checks to vendor accounts in order to balance those accounts, police said.

Varhalak was arrested in Bridgeport in 2008 for embezzling $44,000 from a company there and during the course of the investigation admitted to taking the money from Britt-Air, police said.

She was held on a $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear Oct. 15 in Bridgeport Superior Court.