Richland landscaping company manager accused of stealing $217,000 in less than a year

A 45-year-old office manager is accused of stealing more than $217,000 in the span of 11 months from her Richland employer.

Richland police detectives said the amount Sarah L. Houk took equates to $642 every day during her short employment at Premier Landscaping and Design, court documents said.

Houk pleaded innocent in Benton County Superior Court to first-degree identity theft and two counts of first-degree theft.

The landscaping company company’s owners reached out to Richland police in October 2024 to report that they suspected their former office manager had been misusing the company credit card.

Investigators soon discovered that Houk allegedly had also been overpaying herself and pocketing the majority of cash payments.

Houk was hired as the office controller in November 2023 and given control of the company’s bookkeeping, payroll and several other administrative tasks. The job came with a $125,000 a year salary, a $125 weekly stipend for health insurance and a $230 mileage allowance.

She was also given a credit card to make purchases for the business.

When she suddenly quit on Oct. 11, 2024, the business owners started to piece together the financial picture for the company. They alerted police when they found charges at Costco that were made using the credit card.

They found nearly $26,000 in purchases from the Kennewick store, but they were only aware of $1,400 of those purchases. Another $2,500 in allegedly fraudulent charges were made at Target. Investigators also allegedly uncovered other purchases made at Fred Meyer and Safeway, court documents said.

Houk allegedly admitted to spending $8,000 on the card that she shouldn’t have and offered to pay it back.

“She claimed that she simply hadn’t noticed that thousands of dollars in purchases had not been charged to her bank account,” Deputy Prosecutor Tyler Grandgeorge wrote in court documents.

As police investigated the alleged fraud, officers found that starting with her first paycheck she began overpaying herself. Houk would allegedly generate an initial paycheck with a higher salary that would be deposited, court documents said.

Once the check cleared, police said she would adjust the paperwork to show her true salary.

A Richland police detective confirmed this discrepancy using Houk’s bank records, court documents said. They estimated she paid herself an extra $170,000, court documents said.

In addition, she was responsible for making cash deposits. According to cash invoices, there should have been $39,000 deposited, but only $19,000 in cash made it to the bank.

According to security video at the bank, she hardly ever deposited cash, and most of the cash that was deposited during her time at the business happened while she was out of the office.