Stepmother of Grand Reserve owner admits to stealing $1 million from apartment business

The stepmother of the man who owns the Grand Reserve off Williams Road in Columbus pleaded guilty Tuesday morning in federal court to embezzling nearly $1 million in a scheme that involved fraudulent checks, misuse of credit cards and wire transfers.

Darlene Corbett, appearing in front of U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land, was facing a 23-count indictment, but she entered the guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She admitted in court to stealing $956,918.50. She will be sentenced on Oct. 30 and faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. As part of the plea deal, Corbett agreed to pay restitution for the stolen funds.

Her co-defendant, Dorita Clay of Selma, Ala., is scheduled for trial in front of Land in September.

Prior to Corbett entering the guilty plea, Assistant U.S. Attorney Crawford Seals read the 26-page plea agreement aloud in the the third-floor courtroom in the Columbus federal courthouse.

Steve Corbett owns two large apartment complexes in Columbus and Madison, Ala., both known as the Grand Reserve. The business functions for both complexes was conducted out of an office in Columbus. In 1999, Steve Corbett hired his stepmother, who had been married to his father since 1982, to handle bookkeeping and general accounting for the Grand Reserve. In 2009, she took the title of chief financial officer.

In late 2015, Darlene Corbett told her stepson that she had embezzled more than $100,000 from the Grand Reserve in order to help her mother's bail bonding company in Selma, according to the plea deal. Darlene Corbett was not fired and the crime was not reported to authorities, the plea deal stated.

She promised to pay the money back, but didn't. In August 2016, she signed over her home mortgage as repayment, according to the plea deal.

The scheme began to unravel about that time. Robinson Grimes was conducting a routine audit of the company's finances as required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Darlene Corbett failed to provide bank statements to Grimes.

In 2015, Steve Corbett hired accountants Jim and Laurie Stokes to take over the books for the Grand Reserve and transferred his stepmother to a Phenix City office that handled construction projects unrelated to the Grand Reserve. Once the new accountants were able to access the company's records, a large number of unexplained electronic transfers to a bank account of "DL Clay" in Selma were discovered.

The findings were presented to Steve Corbett by his new accountants in late September 2016. Corbett called his stepmother and asked her to come to the office. She said she would, but never showed up.

The audit showed the first embezzlement occurred on April 30, 2015, when $9,200 was transferred from the Grand Reserve CB&T account to Dorita Clay in Selma.

From April 10, 2015, to Dec. 14, 2015, Darlene Corbett wrote about 70 unauthorized checks on Grand Reserve accounts for a total of $247,175, the plea deal states. Most of them were written to "Darlene B. Corbett." During that time, Darlene Corbett also took $15,378.50 in unauthorized cash advances off a company credit card.

From May to September 2016, the bulk of the money was stolen. During that time, 24 wire transfers were made from Grand Reserve accounts to "D.L. Clay" for a total of $694,365. All but two of the transfers came from CB&T branches, the plea deal started.