A 53-year-old woman from Canberra, Australia, who was arrested and charged with embezzling almost a quarter of a million dollars from her employer, says she stole the money to feed an addiction to video poker.

According to media reports, Joan Whitford-Smith stole almost $235,000 over a three-year period from her employer, R. West Titles, to fund her gambling on casino video poker machines.

The thefts occurred between 2002 and 2005, when the woman, who worked as a bookkeeper, embezzled the monies by writing fraudulent company checks to herself and also making unauthorized electronic fund transfers (EFTs) to her bank account from the company’s bank account, media reports said.

In all, Whitford-Smith wrote 58 fraudulent checks to herself and made 46 unauthorized EFTs to her bank account, media reports said.

The embezzling was not discovered until after Whitford-Smith left the company and her replacement noticed irregularities in the company’s financial records and police were called in to investigate, media reports said.

Whitford-Smith was arrested in February and has been in jail since, media reports said.

Appearing in court the other day for a sentencing proceeding, the woman, who has pleaded guilty to five theft charges in connection with the case, told the judge she embezzled the funds from her employer to feed her addiction to video poker machines, which are commonplace in Australian casinos, media reports said.

“I feel shame for what I did,” she told the judge.

Sentencing was postponed until September 5, media reports said.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)=A0=A0