Tantah Karst sentenced to a year in county jail for felony embezzlement from vet clinic

Defendant Tantah Anna Karst, age 46, of Fort Bragg, was sentenced to a year in the county jail Wednesday by the Mendocino County Superior Court for her embezzlement of over $138,000 from a coast veterinary clinic where the defendant had previously been employed. 


Karst stands convicted by plea of three counts of felony embezzlement – one felony each for calendar years 2017 and 2018, as well as one felony for the first two months of 2019. A sentencing enhancement charging the defendant with having committed serial white collar crimes was also admitted by the defendant. 

Additionally, the defendant was convicted of four misdemeanor weapons charges.  During the course of the embezzlement investigation, the defendant was found in possession of prohibited weapons – metal knuckles, nunchaku, a switchblade knife, and a collapsible baton.

While the prosecution argued at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing that the white collar crimes constituted aggravated examples of embezzlement deserving of state prison time, the Court chose a different sentencing strategy.  Defendant Karst was ultimately sentenced to prison for a term of 52 months, but execution of that sentence was suspended pending the defendant’s successful completion of local supervised probation to last for a period of 60 months.

One of the terms imposed as part of the defendant’s placement on supervised probation is that she serve 360 days in the county jail.  With statutory credits, that converts to a jail sentence of 180 actual days.  The defendant is to surrender in June to begin serving that local time.

Another term imposed was monthly restitution payments to the victim.  Since the defendant has refused to stipulate to the amount of loss determined by the victim’s financial experts, as confirmed by law enforcement during its investigation, a contested restitution hearing will be set in a few weeks so that a final amount of restitution owed can be ordered.  Whatever the final amount ordered, the Court told the defendant that she will be expected to make restitution payments of $1,000 per month or risk having the suspended prison sentence imposed if the failure to make payments is “wilful.”

That said, it did not go unnoted by the prosecutor that such a lenient repayment plan, even if fully complied with, will result only in payments against a growing interest on the stolen principal during the defendant’s time on probation.  This is because the legal rate of interest on court-ordered restitution is ten percent per annum, or approximately 13,800 per year.

The law enforcement agency that developed the evidence to support the convictions was the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

The prosecutor who is handling this matter is Deputy District Attorney Josh Rosenfeld.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Clayton Brennan was the sentencing judge.  He will also be the judge presiding over the upcoming restitution hearing.