Tewksbury woman allegedly stole $1.8 million from Acton flooring company

A Tewksbury woman allegedly stole $1.8 million from her employer in Acton, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

Joanne Dinoto, who was also known as, Joanne Mara, 47, was charged in a superseding indictment with an additional count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return.

In November 2021, Dinoto was indicted on one count of bank fraud, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft. 

According to the charging document, between December 2013 and April 2020, Dinoto stole more than $1.8 million from her employer, a flooring company based in Acton.

The DA’s Office said that Dinoto accomplished this by falsely inflating her salary, using her employer’s corporate credit card for personal expenses, and forging at least two checks to herself from her employer’s checking account. 

To hide the scheme, she allegedly forged her employer’s accounting records.

The DA’s Office also said that between August 2020 through May 2021, Dinoto collected unemployment benefits under her real Social Security number, while also working full-time for a lighting company based in Wilmington under a fake Social Security number.

Furthermore, Dinoto is being charged for tax fraud because between 2015 and 2020, Dinoto did not report the more than $1 million in funds she embezzled from the Acton company, nor her wages from the Wilmington company on her federal income tax returns. 

If found guilty of the charges, Dinoto could face a prison sentence that would last the rest of her life, as well as multi-million dollar fines.

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