The only way to prove that a person has been involved in embezzlement is to establish that there was a fiduciary relationship between them and the alleged victim. In some cases, this can be more difficult to do than in others.
A fiduciary relationship is one where a party places their trust into another. The secondary party has a responsibility to act in the first party’s best financial interests. Essentially, if you place your money with a banker or agent, you trust them to make good decisions with those funds and not to use them for their own personal gain.
If you are accused of embezzlement, the first thing the prosecution will do is attempt to establish a fiduciary relationship. Even if that is established, the prosecution also has to show that you intentionally mismanaged the other person’s funds.
For instance, if you take their payment and intentionally cash it for personal use, that’s an obvious theft. Comparatively, accidentally transferring the funds into the wrong stock account would not necessarily be embezzlement, just a simple error.
Intentions play an important role in embezzlement cases. Your attorney’s job is to make sure that your intentions were clear. If you did not intend to “steal funds” from the other party, then this has to be made clear to the court. If you made a mistake, it’s a good idea to make that mistake obvious.
Proving that you had no ill intentions could be the way that you’re able to resolve the case without an embezzlement conviction, which could impact your career and lead to criminal and financial penalties.