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BULLARD, Texas (KETK)– A former bookkeeper was arrested after she allegedly embezzled over $67,000 from an East Texas construction company.

According to a Smith County arrest affidavit, on July 7, the owners of the construction company based in Bullard contacted the Bullard Police Department and reported that their bookkeeper, Danielle Marie Stanley, had been embezzling funds from their business accounts over the past year.

The owners explained that Stanley had been stealing funds from two business accounts by writing unauthorized checks to herself totaling around $67,670.84 without their consent. Stanley has been employed with the company since May 31, 2023, and has never been permitted to sign checks on either of the business accounts.

On July 3, one of the owners believed the business accounts looked to be low in funds and made a comment to the other owner that she believed there was supposed to be more money in the account. “[One owner] stated that she began to conduct an internal audit of [the company’s] financial documents,” the affidavit said. “This audit revealed approximately $7,000 in fraudulent checks that Stanley wrote to herself.”

The owners believed that Stanley knew that they had found out about the funds being stolen, and learned that Stanley told a witness that she had been stealing funds from the business accounts. “On July 5, this witness revealed to [one owner] that Stanley had confessed to ‘doing something bad’ and that she stole the money from the construction company’s business account to pay off credit card debt,” the document said.

On the morning of July 7, the owners confronted Stanley about the theft, and she agreed she would pay them back and would meet them at the bank. “Stanley agreed to pay back a total of $9,439.61 to the business accounts,” the affidavit said. “Even with Stanley’s payment of $9,439.61 leaves the amount of $58,231.23 stolen from the [company’s] accounts.”

The owner later continued the audit of financial documents and found multiple other unauthorized checks made out to Stanley and her bank to pay her credit cards and mortgage.

“Further investigation revealed that Stanley altered entries in the [company’s] accounting software (QuickBooks) to conceal the unauthorized disbursements. Specifically, Stanley changed the payee or expense category in QuickBooks to make it appear as though the payments were for legitimate business expenses, such as ‘office supplies and software’ or edited the payees’ description to make it appear as if the checks were being issued to contractors that were doing work for [the company], when in fact the checks were being deposited into Stanley’s bank accounts.”

Smith County arrest affidavit

Bullard PD said that the alterations in QuickBooks further showed an intent to conceal the theft and mislead the owners.

The owners also told police that the checks written by Stanley were forged with their signatures. Officers saw copies of the checks that were signed in handwriting inconsistent with that of the owners. According to the affidavit, Stanley’s first unauthorized check was on May 3, 2024, and her last one was on June 5, 2025.

Stanley was arrested on Aug. 13 for theft of property, but posted her $100,000 bond the same day.

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