Why the label matters less than the facts
New York does not prosecute a stand-alone crime called embezzlement; taking money that was entrusted to you is usually charged as a form of larceny, graded largely by the amount involved. Federal law has its own embezzlement provisions, but they reach particular settings, such as federally insured banks or employee benefit plans. The same events can also support civil claims for conversion or breach of fiduciary duty. What tends to be argued is authority: whether the person had permission to move the money, whether a payment was a loan, a bonus, or reimbursement, and whether the books reflect a practice everyone tolerated until the relationship soured.
What an owner and an accused employee should each keep
If you run the company, secure access to bank portals and accounting software, change credentials, and keep the original records intact rather than fixing entries as you go. A forensic accountant retained through counsel can often trace the flow in a way that holds up later, and insurers with employee dishonesty coverage usually expect notice sooner than people assume. If you are the one being accused, keep your own messages about pay, expenses, and approvals, but ask a lawyer before taking any company files, because removing them can create a separate problem. In either seat, avoid long explanatory emails written in the heat of the moment.
The early choices in a first meeting
For a business, the first decision is usually sequence: whether to finish an internal review before reporting to police, whether to pursue a civil claim to recover funds, and how to handle the employee in the meantime. For someone accused, the question is whether to say anything at all to the employer, to investigators, or to the insurer's examiner, and how to respond to a demand for repayment without making admissions. We look at the documents, identify who else had access, and talk through how a repayment offer, if one is made, interacts with any criminal referral.
