Originally published Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 12:00 AM
Former Microsoft manager gets 22-month sentence in embezzlement
Carolyn M. Gudmundson, the former Microsoft employee who pleaded guilty in January to embezzling about $1 million, was sentenced in federal court Friday to 22 months in prison.
Seattle Times staff reporter
Carolyn M. Gudmundson, the former Microsoft employee who pleaded guilty in January to embezzling about $1 million, was sentenced in federal court Friday to 22 months in prison.
The 44-year-old Kirkland woman will also serve three years of supervised release and repay Microsoft some $923,000 in restitution.
A Microsoft employee from 1987 to 2004, Gudmundson became a program manager in the MSN division in 2000, responsible for acquiring, registering and renewing Internet domain names.
In that post, over the next three years, Gudmundson used her personal credit card to make payments, then altered her American Express receipts to overstate her expenses and collect higher reimbursements, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Crisham.
She also submitted invoices to Expedia, payable to herself, for domain-name registrations that had already been paid through an arrangement between Microsoft and Expedia.
In another scheme, she asked Microsoft to reimburse a Glendale, Calif., company for domain names it supposedly bought on Microsoft's behalf, many of which Microsoft already owned. In turn she told that company to send checks to her mother's address, the U.S. attorney said in court.
As part of the plea bargain, the U.S. attorney agreed to drop 17 other counts of wire and mail fraud.
The sentencing had been delayed three times, originally scheduled for April, as the parties disagreed over how to calculate the damages.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez sentenced Gudmundson to less prison time than the U.S. attorney's recommendation of 27 months and the probation office's recommendation of 36 months.
Martinez said the lower sentence was appropriate since she pleaded guilty.
Gudmundson, choking back tears throughout Friday's hearing, will report to serve jail time after Sept. 15 so she can be with her two daughters through the start of the school year.
Isaac Arnsdorf: 206-464-2397 or iarnsdorf@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
UPDATE - 02:55 PM
Microsoft warns of serious computer security hole
Service sector shrinks less than expected in June
Tech execs double as scourges and sages at Allen & Co.'s media summit
UPDATE - 03:08 PM
Stocks end mixed; Oil slide hits energy shares

2009 fireworks time lapse
With strict parking rules enforced at this year's July 4th celebration on Wallingford Ave North, less cars and more spectators filled the streets.
Entertainment | Top Video | World | Offbeat Video | Sci-Tech
- Seattle may allow homeowners to build backyard cottages
- Landmark Smith Tower mostly vacant
- Police: McNair's girlfriend bought gun Thursday
- Property taxes: Appeals shoot up in King, Snohomish Counties
- Mariners Blog | What the Seattle Mariners learned on their road trip
- Palin links resignation to 'higher calling' and blasts media in Facebook posting
- Former NFL MVP McNair killed
- Climber who died in fall was Duvall woman
- Hard times for tourist towns means good deals for travelers
- New laws help tenants evicted due to foreclosure
- Palin links resignation to 'higher calling' and blasts media in Facebook posting
217 - What Mariners learned on this road trip
152 - Tent City on campus: UW stalls decision
117 - Seattle may allow homeowners to build backyard cottages
92 - FBI denounces rumors: Palin not investigated
91 - New laws help tenants evicted due to foreclosure
73 - Bicyclist fatally hit by SUV outside Bremerton
63 - 2 wounded in Central District drive-by shooting
63 - Bellevue ordinance would fine retailers for not collecting runaway shopping carts
62 - Mariners did their part, now they need help
51
- Seattle may allow homeowners to build backyard cottages
- Property taxes: Appeals shoot up in King, Snohomish Counties
- Researchers stunned by inmates' success raising endangered frogs
- Hard times for tourist towns means good deals for travelers
- Landmark Smith Tower mostly vacant
- 250 gather in field near Twisp for fairy congress
- New laws help tenants evicted due to foreclosure
- Microsoft warns of serious computer security hole
- Plasma and LCD beware; OLED screens ready to go mainstream
- Seattle safety project: A snake shelter on Beacon Hill

