AUGUSTA — A former administrative assistant for the Maine Trial Lawyers Association admitted in court this morning to embezzling $166,000 from the group, and a prosecutor said much of it was spent on online social-networking games. However, the chances of the lawyers group recouping that amount are slim. A home owned by Higgins and her husband is in foreclosure. She was accused of forging the name of executive director Steven Prince between May 22, 2006, and Sept. 9, 2010, on 220 checks made payable to herself or to cash, and of doctoring the organization's accounting records to disguise the theft. The scheme was uncovered when Prince was notified a check he had written for $5,500 had bounced. Robbin said an investigator found that over the most recent 18-month period — between January 2009 and September 10, 2010 — Higgins had 78 checks deposited directly to her personal account and paid out the funds to Zyna YoVille and Zynga Mafia Wars, which are social networking games played through Facebook. “Apparently she was buying virtual coins for virtual property in a virtual world,” Robbin said.
There's regular, old, detached from society people, and then there's "embezzling your employers cash to fund your burgeoning Farmville virtual world so you can be the best internet farmer America has ever seen," detached.
And frankly, good for you. Go big or go home, right. Like if you're going to be wasting your employers time playing online facebook games, you might as well go all out. Lets not pussy-foot around here, if you're spending real money on Zynga games like Mafia Wars or Farmville, you're a LOSER. Sorry, there's no getting around that. Once you've crossed the line to actually paying the people of the internet, for the right to grow a good crop of virtual cabbage, you've pretty much announced that you've given up on real life. So at that point, why not go all in like this lady? She probably realized she didn't have much of a life to lose and just did it. And before she got caught, I'm sure she was Queen of the fake life, internet world. Probably had more virtual coins and rupees than anyone, and really, that was as good as it was going to get for her, probably doesn't regret it at all, she's been to the mountain top, she can now die, alone, and poor, and probably in prison, peacefully.
