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Woman pleads to fraud scheme

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By TODD LESKANIC

tleskanic@tampatrib.com

Published: November 4, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Laurette Philipsen went to work in physician Louise Wilder's office in 1998.

During the next seven years, the two women appeared to forge a close relationship. They spent holidays and birthdays together and went on day trips. They talked. Wilder eventually put her friend in charge of the office finances.

"I got to where I just trusted her with everything in my business," Wilder testified Monday. "I was just getting busier and busier, and I didn't have time to pay attention to the business aspect of it. She was just a very believable person and I felt like she knew what she was doing."

Investigators said Philipsen knew what she was doing: stealing from her employer.

The 54-year-old Port Richey woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal use of personal identification and scheme to defraud in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence. Philipsen's plea came one day into her trial. She could have faced up to 60 years in prison had a jury found her guilty.
Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis said Wilder agreed with the deal.

"Ten years is a pretty good hit for a lady who's 54 years old," Halkitis said.

In his opening statement Monday, Assistant State Attorney Chip Stanton told jurors that Philipsen took more than $300,000 from Wilder's practice between 2001 and 2005. She did so by using Wilder's identification to take out a pair of $50,000 loans and by overpaying herself by nearly $90,000 during a period of 17 months in 2004 and 2005.
Stanton said Philipsen also failed to pay the practice's payroll taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, leaving Wilder to pay $178,000 in taxes, fines and interest.

"Meanwhile, the defendant is living large," Stanton said. "She's taking trips to theme parks and going on shopping sprees. And, when she wasn't doing one of those two things, she's depressed."

In his opening statement, Assistant Public Defender Gary Welch said Wilder put Philipsen in a position for which she was not qualified. Philipsen had a GED and Wilder, who completed her residency in 1996, was relatively new at running a medical practice when she hired Philipsen.

"Laurette Philipsen was essentially learning from the doctor and the doctor has no experience in the business of medicine," Welch said. "When the two of them come together with this complete void of life experience and knowledge, it's like a critical mass of a nuclear explosion."

Wilder testified that Philipsen told her the practice wasn't taking in enough money to pay the doctor her $110,000 salary. Wilder said her salary had dwindled to $60,000 by 2005 even though she was seeing more patients nearly every day.

Wilder said she became suspicious in 2005 after realizing Philipsen lied to her about scheduling an appointment.

"I had a really bad sinking feeling," Wilder testified. "I just caught her in an out-and-out lie. If she had lied about this, what else can she be lying about? It all started going downhill from there."

Wilder began to take a closer look at the practice's finances and said she found that Philipsen was writing fraudulent checks to herself. Not long after the discovery, Wilder sold the practice for $18,000 and moved to Georgia.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (813) 731-8098.

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