Photo by Kyle Walton

Diners who have left an establishment owned by the Clyde’s Restaurant Group feeling bilked by a pricey check, take comfort: You weren’t the only ones getting ripped off.

Nancy Preston, who worked for the hospitality company from 1982 to 2011, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to charges that she embezzled $647,547 from her employer between 2001 to 2011. Preston, 55, was Clyde’s corporate controller, overseeing the restaurant group’s accounting and budgeting practices.

Over the course of a decade, Preston stole funds by using Clyde’s funds to pay off her personal credit cards, using corporate cards for personal expenses and used a company vendor to acquire goods and services for herself, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Attorney Ron Machen.

She attempted to cover her tracks by altering documents, sending untrue emails to colleagues and falsifying credit-card statements:

Preston also attempted to hide her embezzlement. Among other things, she asked a vendor to alter invoices for personal items that she purchased to falsely reflect that Clyde’s purchased different items; fabricated e-mail messages, which purportedly sought reimbursement for items purchased by Clyde’s or Clyde’s corporate officers when in fact the resulting Clyde’s check paid for Preston’s personal credit card bill, and categorized credit card expenses as belonging to corporate officers’ training when the expenses were for personal matters for Preston. When Preston learned of an audit on the corporate credit cards, she falsified her Clyde’s corporate credit card statement to delete those items which she knew were not authorized business expenses.

Preston, a resident of Vienna, Va., will be sentenced December 12 and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. As part of her plea agreement, she will sign $258,000 worth of equity and options back to Clyde’s and will forfeit $389,069.