Mental health evaluation ordered for woman charged with embezzling nearly $1M

A woman accused of embezzling nearly $1 million from two companies will undergo a mental health check while her new attorney undertakes a deep dive into the evidence.

Phuong Nguyen-Davis, 56, was back in a York County courtroom Monday, a week after a separate case against her moved forward in Maryland.

She’s charged locally with felony counts of theft, illegal access of a device and accessing a counterfeit device.

Hellam Township Police allege Nguyen-Davis embezzled $915,045 from her employer, Advanced Fluid Systems Inc., while she worked there from 2017 through May 2022.

She’s accused of funneling about half the amount through an online business she apparently helped set up by charging company credit cards to it and then using AFS funds to pay the bills. Investigators allege she opened several corporate cards without permission.

Police also found charges for flights, car leases, appliances, groceries, medical appointments and apparently electric bills to a home in York Township, charging documents show.

A credit card invoice raised suspicions in the company in late May. A few days later, Nguyen-Davis left the company and walked out with her employee records, police said.

She was hired about a month later at Aerolab, an aerospace company in Howard County, Maryland, while Hellam Township Police investigated the AFS allegations.

A couple months in, Aerolab’s CEO alleged he discovered fraudulent charges to company debit cards. A loss of nearly $12,000 was reported. Charges included those for an Airbnb stay, airline tickets, hotels and Amazon purchases, according to Howard County police.

Nguyen-Davis was also accused of making several charges to a PayPal account and then using company money to pay those bills.

She allegedly left the company when the CEO sought to confront her about the charges.

Nguyen-Davis was first charged in York County last August.

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She was then charged in Howard County with counts of theft and embezzlement a couple of months later.

The two cases are now working through the court systems simultaneously.

Monday's hearing: Nguyen-Davis appeared before York County Court of Common Pleas Judge Amber Kraft on Monday.

Her new attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender Matthew Sembach, asked to postpone the hearing for about 120 days while he pores through a “substantial” amount of evidence the prosecution provided in the case.

Judge Kraft agreed to the request. She also ordered Nguyen-Davis to have a mental heath evaluation done for the defense.

Kraft scheduled the next hearing for April 25.

Sembach joined the case recently. Nguyen-Davis was initially represented by a private attorney when her case was on the district court level.

She’s also represented by a public defender in the Howard County case. The next hearing there is scheduled for Feb. 27, court documents show.

Records in the two counties also have conflicting information about where Nguyen-Davis lives now.

She is no longer living in York Township; documents in the local case now show her as living in Hunt Valley, Maryland. The Howard County case lists a Baltimore City address, however.

Nguyen-Davis is free on bail in both cases.

Warrant: A bench warrant for her was also resolved Monday involving a third case, and she wasn’t taken into custody.

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The warrant was initially issued after she missed a hearing in a cost contempt case in York on Dec. 16. Court documents indicate she was in Howard County for an initial court hearing that same day.

The York County Clerk’s Office alleges in the cost contempt case that Nguyen-Davis failed to pay more than $159,000 in outstanding restitution from three other theft cases dating back to 2013.

Nguyen-Davis pleaded guilty in each of those cases, and she was sentenced in March 2014 to jail time and probation, plus she was ordered to pay restitution.

— Reach Aimee Ambrose at aambrose@yorkdispatch.com or on Twitter at @aimee_TYD.