Agency Employee Charged with Stealing $22K from New York Agency

The owner of a Woodside, New York insurance brokerage has been arrested for allegedly stealing $22,300 in commissions from an insurance agency that fired her.

New York fraud investigators said Gohar Parunakyan, 40, of Fresh Meadows, typed her name on 17 commission checks made payable to Vital Insurance Brokerage, her former employer. She is accused of cashing the checks while she was employed as an agent by Vital.

Authorities said she cashed checks sent to Vital by two insurance companies between September 2006 and January 2009. She was fired by Vital in 2009 and the same year opened her own insurance brokerage, H&M Insurance Brokerage Inc. on 69th Street in Woodside (Queens).

She faces four years in prison if convicted.

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Source: New York State Insurance Department