CFO turned embezzler faces up to 23 years in prison. Read his plea agreement
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Embezzlers next door
The case of Scott Simkins, a Johnson County man who had it all but still wanted more, raises confounding questions about embezzlers: Why do they steal? How do they do it? And how can they be caught?
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Richard Scott Simkins worked for Genesys Systems Integrator in Kansas City for 19 years. For his last seven, from 2013 to 2020, the now-disgraced former chief financial officer was plunging deep into the company’s coffers.
In his plea agreement, signed on January 20, 2022, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Mahoney, Simkins pleaded guilty to two felony counts. One is for mail fraud, for which he faces no more than 20 years in prison and a $350,000 fine. The other is for felony tax evasion, for which he faces no more than three years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
In the agreement, Simkins, a divorced father of three from Overland Park, concedes to embezzling some $3 million of the company’s money for his own personal uses, including paying off credit cards, using it for mortgage payments, rents, trips, household expenses and his children’s college tuition and expenses. He also concedes to cheating the state and federal government out of $997,844 in taxes.
Simkins agreed to pay restitution to Genesys in an amount still to be determined by the court, along with $867,713 to the U.S. Treasury. Sentencing has yet to be scheduled, but is expected to occur this summer or early fall.
Released on his own recognizance, Simkins currently resides in Florida. He and his former wife, Stephanie Lyn Simkins (who reverted to her maiden name, Stephanie Lyn Hamilton) are also defendants in a civil suit filed against them by Genesys in Circuit Court in Jackson County. The case, filed in October 2020, is pending.
