Local business destroyed by alleged embezzlement

WASILLA — A Wasilla family’s business is in shambles after an employee allegedly siphoned more than $120,000 from its coffers.

Kainer Electric’s former office manager, Tina A. Denton, 41, was arrested Sept. 6 and charged with theft, scheme to defraud, falsifying business records and fourth-degree drug misconduct, according to a Wasilla Police Department press release. Police say Denton made admissions regarding the embezzlement.

It’s been a tough spring and summer for Raylene and Ben Kainer. In March, someone broke into the family business, Kainer Electric, and stole the laptop computers. Later, Ben Kainer came down with diverticulitis — a digestive disease that causes abdominal pain.

But the worst came just a short while before his diagnosis when the couple learned more than $120,000 was missing from the company’s books.

Attempts to contact Denton were unsuccessful. Jail records show she has been released under supervision pending trial.

The Kainers have spent weeks uncovering the alleged fraud.

“My kids did not have mommy all summer,” Raylene Kainer said of her four children.

The business has begun bankruptcy proceedings and has had to close its doors.

It all started in late June where, since the March break-in, the business had been running from Denton’s house. After the door and window at the company’s offices had been repaired, Ben Kainer told Denton he’d be moving the business out of her house, Raylene Kainer said. Then, Denton put in her two weeks’ notice.

Denton, she said, had been a good employee.

“We trusted her,” Raylene Kainer said. “Didn’t like her mouth, but if somebody’s doing a good job, or you think that she’s doing a good job, you kind of overlook their attitude.”

As the Kainers were setting up shop back in their old offices, Raylene Kainer said she booted up one of the company’s computers and the first thing she saw was a file titled, “How to screw your boss in five minutes.”

That, she said, raised a huge red flag.

Denton had been keeping the books, Raylene Kainer said, and the numbers didn’t seem to be adding up. So, she went to their bank. What she found was hard to believe, Kainer said. Denton had apparently kept one set of books and showed a different set to the Kainers.

Raylene Kainer said the way the day-to-day business ran, Kainer Electric and its employees would sometimes go weeks without paychecks as they waited for money to come in from contractors. Once the money arrived, they’d get everybody caught up. Still, she said, the longest anyone went between paychecks last year was 11 weeks.

According to the books Denton kept, though, that wasn’t the case for Denton, Raylene Kainer said. In a 27-week period, the books show Denton issued herself 58 paychecks.

“All the time that we all went without a paycheck she was pulling one or two paychecks a week,” Kainer said.

Not only that, comparing the books shows per diem allowances for other employees were falsified, Kainer said. In Denton’s books those entries showed up as having been paid to Denton.

The books also showed Denton was reimbursing herself for things already paid. The list, Raylene Kainer said, goes on.

As the investigation progressed, Kainer said her husband’s health took a bad turn. His diverticulitis worsened and he had to undergo emergency surgery. He was left unable to work, unable to lift more than a few pounds.

For her own part, Raylene Kainer said that for a large part of the summer she would spend three days straight going over the books, then take 24 hours to sleep and go back at it. She took to heart police admonitions not to talk to anybody about the case and holed up in the house and the office to avoid any temptation.

“I became a hermit,” she said.

With so much money gone the business has been unable to pay the bills or its taxes and has entered bankruptcy proceedings.

“It’s been hard, it’s been really rough, but I’ve got great kids where they understand,” Kainer said. 

It’s also been rough, she said, to hear “people saying it’s our fault because we didn’t look at the books, it’s our fault because we signed blank checks. When you’re running a business and you trust somebody, you’re going to do that.”

Besides, she said, “Ben was checking the books.”

It was just the wrong set of books.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.