A man employed as an office manager for a local health care provider was arrested Tuesday for allegedly swindling more than $10,000 from his employer.
Guillermo Alvarez, 43, was hired in July 2021 to be the office manager for Pain and Spine Centers of Florida located at 8136 Centralia Court in Leesburg.
Alvarez’s employer contacted the Leesburg Police Department on Oct. 4 regarding the alleged theft of money by Alvarez. A review of the bank transactions revealed that non-business transactions had occurred. When Alvarez was confronted regarding those transactions, he resigned.
A Leesburg detective was assigned to the case and was shown bank records which revealed that Alvarez had been adding between $500 to $600 to every paycheck he received from Jan. 5, 2022. Alvarez also took an additional $13,587 in an unauthorized off-cycle payroll on Sept. 30.
Alvarez had been hired at $19 per hour and gave himself two unauthorized pay raises to $20 per hour and then to $21 per hour. The detective indicated in his affidavit of probable cause used to obtain a warrant for Alvarez ’s arrest that he is seeking information regarding the use of the company credit cards which showed a $200,000 charge to Tiffany Jewelers and another credit card which has $10,000 transaction not authorized by the company.
The detective was also provided with information that Alvarez had used a USB thumb drive to take employee information and some patient records.
Alvarez was charged with grand theft $10,000 to $20,000 and scheme to defraud less than $20,000.
He was booked at the Lake County Jail and released after posting $7,000.
