Woman Gets 15 Years for Embezzling $2.2 Million

A Camarillo woman has been sentenced to 15 years in state prison for embezzling $2.2 million from an Oxnard-based seed company, in what authorities said was one of the largest such cases in Ventura County history.

Dejah Dawn Browne, 38, pleaded guilty in May to multiple counts of grand theft, money laundering, forgery and income tax fraud in connection with more than 30 fraudulent transactions she committed while employed as payroll manager for Seminis Inc. from January 1998 to March 2001.

On Tuesday, Superior Court Judge Bruce Clark ordered Browne to serve 15 years in prison. She also was ordered to pay Seminis $1.2 million in restitution.

“The company really believed in her and put their faith in her,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas Johnson said. “She used her position of trust to bamboozle the company and defraud them of a lot of money, and she did that with a lot of sophistication.”

Deputy Public Defender Anita Candelaria said the 15-year sentence was too harsh for a woman who had no prior criminal record and who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from a troubled childhood.

“Yes, she took a lot of money, but for 36 years before the commission of this crime, she led a law-abiding life -- she didn’t even have a traffic ticket,” Candelaria said. “She was diagnosed chronically traumatized. Apparently that didn’t mitigate it in the judge’s mind.”

Browne was arrested in June 2001, after company officials noticed three transactions totaling $700,000 close to one another.

Johnson said Browne manipulated the computer system to create payroll checks in the names of former employees that were then directly deposited into her own bank accounts. She also signed over to her accounts 13 company checks amounting to $209,075.

She paid back the $700,000, plus another $500,000 she had from liquidated assets, Johnson said. In addition to the restitution she owes the company, Browne must pay $121,312 to the California Franchise Tax Board.