Rome Woman Charged With Embezzling Over $100K

The owner of a company whose longtime employee is charged with embezzling $110,000 said he was shocked and upset when he found out.

That employee, 33-year-old Rochelle Alexandria Vallejos, was arrested Thursday and charged with felony theft by conversion.

She had been with the Brown family’s real estate company for seven years. In addition to the real estate company with over 50 residential properties and storage units, the family also owns Brown Construction, run by Tyler Brown.

“I was normally involved with running the construction side of our business,” he said. “But I had to take over the other side of the business when my father stepped down earlier this year.”

It was already a difficult time in the family. His father had been arrested on a drug-trafficking charge, and once Brown took the reins he could tell something wasn’t right.

The bank accounts for the rental properties were empty, he said, and some of his property taxes hadn’t been paid in two years.

Vallejos had effectively run the real estate portion of the company as a secretary for some time and that’s where the family says much of the theft allegedly occurred.

Part of Vallejos’ job was depositing checks, and police say she was depositing checks meant for the company directly into her checking account.

Another issue is when Brown spoke with his tenants and asked about the rent, they claimed they paid Vallejos directly. Much of the rent is paid with checks and money orders, but some were paid in cash or directly to Vallejo’s Venmo account.

He said the $110,000 figure is a conservative one and only represented one year’s missing revenue.

“If she hadn’t been so greedy she would probably have gotten away with it,” Brown said. “I’m not vindictive, we’ll just let justice be done.”