An embezzler described as ‘cruel, calculating and diabolical’ in a bookkeeping scheme that destroyed a Columbia restaurant by draining its bank accounts got six and a half years in federal prison Friday.
“Her conduct was some of the most brazen I have ever witnessed as a sentencing judge,” U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon said toward the end of a two-and-a-half hour hearing at the end of which Lydon handed down a 78-month sentence.
Convicted bookkeeping thief Melodie Hoover, 52,- also known as Melodie Turner and Melodie Gill - left the federal courthouse in Columbia after the hearing, covering her face from a camera and telling a reporter from The State newspaper, “I’m not guilty. I’m going to appeal.”
But U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling scoffed at Hoover’s assertion of innocence, telling reporters outside the courthouse that a federal jury had heard all the evidence in a two-day trial last November and wasted no time in finding Hoover guilty of money laundering and wire fraud.
“The jury and the judge clearly disagree with that,” Stirling said.
Hoover will report to federal prison at a later, unscheduled date.
What she used the money for
During the hearing, assistant U.S. Attorney DeWayne Pearson told the judge that an “exact calculation” of the money showed that Hoover had stolen $317,373 over a three-month period from All In Restaurant Group, the corporate name for the entity that owned three restaurants operated by businessman Michael Duganier.
“It is simply not an amount plucked out of the ether,” Pearson told the judge.
Hoover used that $317,737 to build a nice pool behind her house in rural Lexington County and add a sunroom onto the house, Pearson said.
She also paid for “very expensive” landscaping and a security system at her house, Pearson said.
She also bought numerous items from Hobby Lobby and Sam’s Club, items that gave her house a down-home country theme, Pearson told the judge.
Favorite items of Hoover included jars of Number 90 amber wood & cedar jar candles and a glass-fronted cabinet with the words “country spring” on the glass, Pearson said.
The stolen money represented a nice illegal bonus of about $10,000 a month for Hoover, whose annual salary was $60,000.
How the scheme worked
As bookkeeper over three restaurants in Columbia for those two and half years she was employed, Hoover wrote thousands of checks for bills, payroll and other expenses, including hundreds of checks to herself, Pearson told the judge.
The restaurants were Publico Five Points, Publico Bull Street, and Boku Gervais Street. It was Boku that was driven out of business by Hoover’s actions, Pearson said.
None of the checks Hoover wrote to herself were so sizable that they stood out, and although Duganier scanned the checks once they were posted, he just gave the amounts a quick glance before images of the checks with details were posted, so he didn’t detect the ongoing fraud, Pearson said.
Although Hoover did not use high-tech ways of covering her tracks, such as encryption or offshore banks, her scheme was sophisticated in that it involved moving money from the restaurant accounts into accounts controlled by Hoover, who then moved the money into other bank accounts in the name of her mother, daughter and son, evidence showed.
Hoover had an insider’s grasp of how much money to steal at certain times, since money-flows into the restaurants ebbed and flowed, and the owner Duganier was known to check the accounts at certain times and not others, Pearson told the judge.
“She chopped up the money she stole into hundreds of transactions” to keep avoiding being discovered, Pearson said.
“It was her way how not to get caught. It was her way to do this over and over,” Pearson said.
While this stealing was going on, every day she talked with Duganier, “looked him in the face and lied to him over and over again,” Pearson said.
Discovering the scheme
Toward the end of her employment, someone sent Duganier a mug shot of Hoover from the Lexington County jail taken around 2021. At the time, Hoover - under the last name of Gill - was facing state charges of defrauding her employer of an amount of money under $2,000, according to court records.
In 2021, Hoover had been arrested and convicted for breach of trust - embezzlement - at a business she worked for, according to Lexington County records. She did not have to serve any time in prison, Pearson said.
When Duganier confronted about her previous arrest, she immediately attempted to drain all the company bank accounts and “drive them out of business,” Pearson said.
Hoover emptied the accounts by paying enormous sums in advance to the S.C. Department of Revenue and to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Pearson said.
That left no money to pay “dozens” of employees at the restaurants, he told the judge.
At the end, the accounts were overdrawn by some $87,000, evidence showed.
The fact that Hoover had a prior state conviction for embezzlement and did not reform or show remorse shows how dangerous she is, Pearson said.
“Her various frauds are choices she made,” Pearson said, calling Hoover “diabolical.”
Hoover’s defense
Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Hoover’s lawyer, told the judge that the government’s estimate of the total amount stolen - $317,737 - was overstated and could actually be $95,000 less.
But Judge Lydon dismissed the claim that the government was overstating the stolen amount, telling Franklin-Best she was offering no evidence to support her assertion that would prove the government’s theft figure of $317,737 was wrong.
Franklin-Best also argued for a light prison sentence of only four years or less, saying that Hoover did not pose a threat to anyone, had serious health problems and was now financially destitute.
Moreover, Hoover was needed at home to care for her mother, Joan Hoover, 77, who has umerous ailments and uses a walker. Hoover has sold her house and moved in with her mother, Franklin-Best said.
Other Hoover relatives are “not around,” Franklin-Best told the judge.
In a rambling statement, Hoover talked about her family issues and her relationship with Duganier and, only at the end, almost as an afterthought, she said she felt bad for him and, “That is it. I apologize.”
Judge Lydon said she especially felt sorry for Duganier, the victim in the case, who had started out in the restaurant business as a dishwasher, found he loved it and worked his way up to having three restaurants. His losses from Hoover’s betrayals have caused him severe financial hardship, Lydon said.
Lydon, who is known to have given light sentences to defendants who show remorse and have compelling life circumstances, had no mercy for Hoover.
Hoover’s 78-month sentence was at the top end of federal sentencing guidelines.
Hoover, with her “greed-driven conduct,” had shown herself to be a menace, Lydon said.
“Make no mistake - violent crime or not - I find you are most definitely a danger to the public,” the judge said.
Background of the case
A federal jury found Hoover guilty on both counts of the Indictment after a two-day trial in Columbia last November. Lydon presided.
U.S. Attorney Stirling said anyone hiring a bookkeeper should invest $25 and get a background check done on their prospective employee. The process takes little time, he said.
The Secret Service and the West Columbia police department worked on the case.
Prosecuting attorney Pearson said if would-be embezzlers didn’t get the message from Hoover’s trial and prison sentence, “We’ll be here to prosecute them as well.”
