Date
Former NHTSA Employee Ordered to Repay $24,000 For Embezzling From Government
On August 28, Beatriz Lorena Villa, a former NHTSA administrative staff assistant was ordered by a U.S. District Court judge in Washington, DC to pay $24,000 in restitution and serve 48 months probation on embezzlement charges. Between December 2001 and March 2004, Villa fraudulently claimed that she and another NHTSA staff assistant, Julia Goldson, had worked over 1,000 hours of overtime. In fact, the overtime was neither authorized nor performed. Villa received about $24,000 and Goldson more than $12,000 as a result of the fraudulent overtime claims. Goldson pled guilty to the same charge on June 1, and was sentenced on Aug. 17 to repay $12,000 and serve 24 months of probation. Both women resigned from NHTSA in October 2004.