A Baltimore County woman was charged yesterday with using a sophisticated computer scheme to embezzle $1.4 million from the Baltimore-area Ironworkers union over a 4 1/2 -year period, federal prosecutors said.
Kristen Kupfer-Lovin, 29, of the 2000 block of Paulette Road in the North Point area was charged in a criminal "information" -- a charge filed by prosecutors rather than by a grand jury -- with felony theft from an employee benefit plan.
Such a filing usually means that a suspect has agreed to waive indictment and plead guilty. Ms. Kupfer-Lovin is expected to plead guilty to the charge, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
Prosecutors, who said more people could be charged in the scheme, would not provide details about the investigation yesterday.
A lawsuit filed by the union in Baltimore County Circuit Court this year alleges that the theft was carried out by Ms. Kupfer-Lovin and another woman, both of whom worked in the union's benefits office and wrote 280 checks to themselves.
No criminal charges have been filed against the other woman.
The lawsuit was filed by Ironworkers Local No. 16 Health Fund. The local represents about 850 Baltimore-area ironworkers.
Funded mostly through employer contributions, the union fund provides health benefits to eligible employees and their dependents.
While working for the benefits office, Ms. Kupfer-Lovin processed claims and prepared checks for union members as reimbursements for medical expenses.
But she and the other woman, the lawsuit says, were also systematically filing false claims on behalf of union members and manipulating the process so that checks would be made out in the defendants' names.
The union has filed an insurance claim for the money that was stolen.