By James McNair
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Western & Southern, the venerable life insurance and money management concern, said Wednesday it expects to recover almost all of the $430,000 allegedly pilfered by a 21-year-old former employee during a 52-day stretch.

The ex-employee, Laura Weber of Westwood, and her 22-year-old roommate, Jessica Sullivan-Griggs, were indicted last month on third-degree theft and tampering with records charges in connection with a scheme of using company money to bankroll a personal spending spree that ended Feb. 25.

The pair pleaded not guilty. They are free on bond while awaiting trial.

"What happened was the employee was cutting checks to her roommate and to payees who did no business with Western & Southern," said Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen. "She appears to have been a lower-level clerical person, although she had access to these checking accounts. She took advantage of it and was caught."

Weber and Sullivan-Griggs are accused of spending about $80,000 of Western & Southern's money on a pair of 2004 BMW Z-4 sports cars from Jake Sweeney BMW, $53,000 on a house for Sullivan-Griggs' mother, $10,000 to pay off debt and $6,000 for a New York City trip in March.

They repaid the company $100,000 on the day of their arrest. The rest of the money was not accounted for on the arrest report.

Although the pair was indicted on a charge of theft by deception, Allen said they simply used company checks for their purchases.

"It's just plain stupid," the prosecutor said. "It's obvious they were going to get caught eventually. You can only surmise that greed got the better of them."

Western & Southern spokesman Herb Brown would not say what Weber did for the company or how long she worked there. He would not say if any other employees are suspected of assisting Weber.

"We found out this employee was doing something wrong, and our auditing procedures enabled us to detect it very quickly and notify authorities," Brown said. "We will recover an overwhelming majority of the assets taken."

Brown would not say if Western & Southern, which owns or manages $28 billion in assets, has taken steps to prevent others from siphoning money from company accounts.

"We are confident that we have the appropriate controls in place to prevent any loss," he said.

E-mail jmcnair@enquirer.com