TMC Head Pleads Guilty To Robbing Travel Buyer Of Millions

The founder, president and CFO of travel management firm Tri-Pen Management this week pleaded guilty to grand larceny for stealing more than $35 million over nearly four years through a client's American Express commercial payment account.

The Manhattan District Attorney this week said Victoria Wofford, who "exercised full control over the finances of Tri-Pen Management Corp.," stole funds beginning in November 2006 and persisting through late February this year. Most of the funds were funneled for business development at Tri-Pen TravelMaster Technologies, a travel management tech firm, while $2.4 million went toward investing "in a restaurant chain in California" and $475,000 went to the purchase of an apartment in St. Petersburg, Fla., under Wofford's husband's name.

The DA also said Wofford committed forgery in the second degree and identity theft in the first degree. "In order for Wofford to go undetected during the scheme, she pretended to be an employee of the client, responsible for handling travel expenses," the court proceeding said. The name of the client was not disclosed.

Court documents show that American Express began to uncover the crime earlier this year, prompting Wofford to hire a lawyer, who by the end of March contacted the DA to arrange to bring her in to provide a full confession and surrender her passport.

"Balanced against her cooperation and plea for leniency is the simple fact that this was a long-term, intentional and systematic course of fraudulent conduct that resulted in the theft of millions of dollars," court documents said, noting that the sentencing would be determined at a later court appearance. Wofford faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.

"Corporate fraud victimizes an honest company by decreasing its bottom line, hurting its reputation and diminishing morale," Manhattan DA Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., said in a statement on Wednesday. "Losses of any amount can have a ripple effect on the salaries and benefits of employees and those who do business with the company. This defendant committed multimillion-dollar fraud in a systematic fashion over a number of years. This office remains committed to bringing perpetrators of large-scale economic crime to justice."