The former office manager for an Augusta medical practice has been sentenced after admitting she stole more than half a million dollars from the business. Shirley Ann Taylor, 65, of Gibson, Ga., was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay $1,163,091.68 in restitution. She is also to serve three years of supervised release after completion of her prison term. As described in court documents and testimony, Taylor was employed at an Augusta medical practice from 2006 to 2020 as the office and payroll manager. The year after she was hired, Taylor began stealing from her employer by inflating her own pay and writing unauthorized company checks which she deposited in her own account or used to pay her mortgage. The company in 2020 hired a new office manager who quickly noted accounting discrepancies amounting to nearly $1.2 million. In her guilty plea, Taylor accepted responsibility for stealing a minimum of $550,000 from the company.
