Former Maui Nursery Bookkeeper Sentenced for Wire Fraud

Thelma Pascua-Suyat, 64, of Maui was sentenced in federal court on Monday to a 3-year 7-month jail term for wire fraud.

As part of her sentence, Pascua-Suyat must serve three years of supervised release, and pay $1,167,895.47 in restitution.

US Attorney for the District of Hawaii Kenji M. Price announced that, according to court documents and information presented in court, “from 2008 to 2016, Pascua-Suyat used her position as the bookkeeper for Ki-Hana Nursery,” in Kīhei, “to falsify electronic bookkeeping records and steal over $1.3 million dollars from the Nursery.”

Justice officials went on to say that, “Pascua-Suyat’s scheme to defraud Ki-Hana Nursery lasted over the course of seven years and that during that time she used the funds of Ki-Hana to pay over $1 million dollars in personal credit card debt and to make over $65,000 in payments on her home mortgage.”

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Ken Sorenson.
The sentence was handed down by Senior United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollway.