A Bonney Lake woman was charged with eleven counts of forgery and one count of theft this week for allegedly siphoning nearly $26,000 from a Puyallup landscaping business.

Jeanette Kay Sturtz, 57, faced similar charges in 2011 for taking an unauthorized $10,600 from her homeowners association while acting as treasurer. The charges were dismissed when it was determined she had paid back the sum, a restitution she completed in January 2011 with the help of her mother, according to court documents for the present case. Investigation by Puyallup police showed the financial controller may have used her employer’s business account in part to pay back her debt to the association. A detective working the case noted the forgeries began in Sept. 2010, the same month her thefts from the homeowners association ended.

On Nov. 8, 2011, Sturtz’s employer filed a theft report with police after an outside accountant uncovered 59 fraudulent checks on the books, 57 of which had been issued to Sturtz; the remaining two had been written to utilities unrelated to the business. The employer told police that Sturtz — someone he considered an “excellent” employee of four years — did not have authority to write checks on behalf of the business, and it appeared all the checks had been forged with his name or the name of the other two people with account access.

Prior to the report of theft, another employee had brought an initial suspicious check to the owner’s attention. After they reviewed the business account and found several apparently fraudulent checks written to Sturtz, he confronted her about the discrepancies and she told him she would look into it. The next day she called in sick and did not return in the days following. The owner collected her things and brought them to her home, where he said she admitted to the theft.

“I know I did it,” she allegedly said, according to the owner’s account in the court documents. “I am so sorry. I promise to pay you back.”

After the outside accountant uncovered the extent of the theft, the owner and Sturtz’s family agreed to a restitution amount. He informed them he would still be pursuing prosecution.

During his internal investigation, the owner discovered Sturtz’s previous court case.

The Pierce County Prosecutor’s office filed a court summons Thursday for an arraignment date of March 20.