A Sierra Vista woman accused of embezzling more than $1.2 million over several years from 11 clients of her payroll service will not stand trial next month as previously announced.
Patricia Jane Bowman is charged with 41 felonies related to money laundering, fraud, and forgery allegedly committed through her company, Daystar Payroll LLC. A jury trial was set to start July 27 in Cochise County Superior Court, but it was vacated last week by Judge Laura Cardinal during a pretrial conference.
Cardinal took that action after designating Bowman’s case as complex due to the number of victims and the hundreds of transactions in question. Bowman has been ordered to return to Cardinal’s courtroom Sept. 7 to set a new trial date.
Court records show Bowman, 48, was arrested and indicted in January following an investigation started by the Sierra Vista Police Department in early 2020. She has cooperated with authorities throughout the investigation, according to Det. John Papatrefon.
When Bowman was taken into custody, Papatrefon filed a probable cause statement in which he summarized the investigation into more than $1,276,000 which Daystar Payroll clients say was given to Bowman but was never submitted to the IRS or the Arizona Department of Revenue.
“The scheme to pilfer money from her customers payroll taxes went on from January 2012 to October 2019, but the majority of money stolen from these companies occurred from 2014 to 2019,” he wrote. “The suspect acquired and transferred money from her customers payroll accounts knowing the proceeds used were from the theft of those accounts.”
After her arrest, Bowman was ordered held in the Cochise County jail in lieu of a $200,000 appearance bond. She was later released in mid-February under the third-party custodianship of her husband. The conditions of her pretrial release restrict her from leaving Cochise County except for legal and medical appointments unless she obtains prior court approval; her husband is required by court order to report any violations.