West Islip bookkeeper charged in $385,000 embezzlement scheme

A West Islip woman who worked as a bookkeeper for a West Babylon company was charged after Suffolk County police said she wrote herself checks totaling more than $385,000 over a five-year span, a loss that went undetected until an internal audit of bank statements flagged the fraud.

Patricia Sparby, 66, of 837 Udall Road in West Islip, was accused of embezzling $385,424.36 from R & J Display Inc., located at 96 Otis St. in West Babylon. Police said the checks were written between January 2019 and August 2024 while Sparby worked as the company’s bookkeeper, placing one employee in control of a financial function that should have been tightly monitored.

The case underscores how damaging a long-running bookkeeping fraud can be for a small business. A theft of that size can strain cash flow, distort accounting records and force owners to scrutinize years of transactions to determine what was lost. In this case, police said the scheme was not uncovered by a customer complaint or an outside tip, but by an internal audit of bank statements in 2025, raising questions about how the payments evaded detection for so long.

Detectives from the Suffolk County Police Financial Crimes Unit and prosecutors from the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office Financial Crimes Bureau investigated the case. Sparby was charged with Grand Larceny in the 2nd Degree and was scheduled to be arraigned Monday in First District Court in Central Islip.

Suffolk County police said the charge is an accusation and that Sparby is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Even so, the allegations point to a familiar workplace failure: when a trusted employee has unchecked access to company funds, losses can build quietly for years before anyone notices.