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expenses of $120,825. However, we do not find this sufficient in
itself to find that Linda’s lack of suspicion became unreasonable
that year. First, most of that spending was on home improvements
rather than deposits into their joint account, and as we already
noted Linda had no familiarity with how expensive they might be.
Looking at the numbers for each calendar year might also have
been misleading--especially in a business where legitimate bonus
income might be clustered at the beginning or end of a year, but
the spending that it fuels might occur in a different year.
The last factor is whether Jerry was in any way evasive or
deceitful regarding the embezzled money. Jerry credibly
testified that he deliberately took actions to ensure that Linda
would not find out about his embezzlement or his failure to
report it, because he viewed her as an honest woman who would
never sign a false tax return. And when she collected from him
the W-2s and other documents that their accountant needed to
complete their returns, he was careful to withhold any paperwork
that might cause her to question the numbers.
Linda realized that Jerry was being less than trustworthy
when she learned in 1994 that investigators had raided his
office. But ever since, she has regularly checked up on him.
Jerry testified during trial:
THE COURT: Who in your family pays the monthly
utility bills, the routine checks of that kind?
THE WITNESS: My wife does.
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