The News Leader
By Brad Zinn
WAYNESBORO – As the office manager at Central Virginia Rental since 1997, Lori M. Guyer took in money, balanced the books, made the deposits and handled the company credit cards. She also made off with more than $170,000 before her job was terminated in 2003.
As the undetected thefts and financial losses piled up, president and co-owner Danny Showalter was forced to shut down the company’s other store on Greenville Avenue in Staunton. “We just couldn’t put our hand on what was taking place,” Showalter said. Finally, a clue pointed directly to Guyer. “She issued a refund for a credit card from a closed account” at the Staunton location, he said.
Showalter said Guyer implemented a couple of methods of theft. Besides using credit cards to access money, Showalter said Guyer would pocket cash transactions meant for vehicle rentals and in-house financing. In May, she pleaded guilty in federal court to embezzling $170,542 from the company. Guyer faces the possibility of 15 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 at her sentencing on Aug. 8.
Guyer wasn’t just an employee at CVR, she was an old friend of Showalter’s. “Our parents knew each other, we knew each other from childhood,” he said. The month before the credit card theft was discovered, Guyer and her husband had dinner with Showalter and his wife, Sara.
“It was like a stab in the chest,” she said of Guyer’s arrest and subsequent conviction. “Total shock and awe.”
Along with the agony of thoroughly losing the trust of a longtime friend, there was the task of propping the business back up after incurring such heavy financial losses. “It could have put us under,” Showalter said. “You lose your ability to grow. You’re just trying to sustain what you had.”
In the spring of 2003, Showalter’s wife was asked to come onboard to right the ship after 13 years as an administrative assistant in Augusta Medical Center’s Home Health Care Division. She gave her two weeks notice and immediately started working at CVR, an equipment and special events rental company, as its new office administrator. “I was learning a new job as well as leaving the old one,” she said.
During the seven-month investigation into Guyer’s activities, the strain also took its toll on the lives of their two teenage children at home. “An interruption of their routine,” Showalter said. “And children that age need routine.”
Forensic accountant Tracy L. Coenen of Milwaukee said not only can embezzlement scams hurt small businesses financially, but also morale suffers. “The owners feel violated, and the employees feel violated as well,” she said. “Everyone is left to pick up the pieces.”
Coenen said it’s not unusual for small businesses to fold after being bilked. But following the failure of the Staunton store, and with Guyer gone, CVR managed to regroup.
“You don’t want to lose what you’ve worked 25 years for,” Showalter said. The company now has two stores in Waynesboro, and one each in Charlottesville and Harrisonburg along with a new location in Staunton.
A tough lesson also was learned. Even though it is Showalter’s wife handling the chores Guyer once did, oversight is still in place. Resigned to the fact that he’ll probably never recoup all of the money stolen, Showalter has his sights set Guyer’s sentencing date. “It’ll bring some closure for us,” he said. “I’ll be glad to really get it behind us.”
His wife added, “Even somebody you’ve known your whole life can betray you, it’s very hard to believe. Hardly a day goes by that you don’t think about it.”
