Pacific Islands Embezzlement - Guam's Teresa Adamos Pereda sentenced to 8 years for $1 million theft

Teresa Adamos Pereda managed the dental office of Dr. Robert Gatewood on the island of Guam for 27 years. Over eight of those years — from 2011 until the fraud was ultimately uncovered — she wrote unauthorized checks drawn on Gatewood’s business account, directing funds to herself and to entities she controlled. By the time investigators completed their review, the total reached $1.1 million across more than a decade of access.

Pereda entered a plea agreement filed in the District Court of Guam on January 31, admitting that she had diverted Gatewood’s funds for personal use by writing company checks to Nored Inc. — an entity associated with her — and to herself directly. The first documented transaction, $7,317 to Nored Inc., was written in 2011. A second check for $3,397 followed a week later. The pattern continued for eight years, gradually escalating in frequency and amount, until the total reached $1.1 million. She pleaded guilty to ten counts of bank fraud and was sentenced in September 2021 to eight years in prison. A concurrent five-year sentence for a separate, unrelated advanced fee fraud scheme was imposed at the same hearing.

The number that defines this case is not the dollar amount. It is 27 — the number of years Pereda had worked for Gatewood before the first unauthorized check was written. That length of service is exactly what allowed the theft to run for eight years without detection. Trust accumulated over nearly three decades suppressed the scrutiny that would have caught the very first transaction. For dentists who have long-tenured employees managing their finances, the Pereda case is a direct illustration of why tenure is not a substitute for independent oversight — it is, in cases like this one, precisely what makes the oversight disappear.

Related Cases: Stamford CT Dental Office Manager Elena Ilizarov Sentenced to Prison for Defrauding Insurance Companies of $1.2 million | Dr. Jack Massarsky sentenced to 2 years for $1.2M embezzlement scheme

What the Pacific Islands Embezzlement Case Teaches Dental Practice Owners

The Pacific Islands Embezzlement case illustrates how quickly embezzlement losses can accumulate in a dental practice. When an employee is given access to financial systems without adequate oversight, a theft of $1 million can go undetected for months or even years. The dollar figure alone understates the true damage — add legal fees, lost productivity during the investigation, and the disruption to patient care, and the real cost to a practice is invariably higher than the amount stolen.

This case reflects a pattern that Prosperident investigators encounter regularly: trusted employees who exploit access to practice finances over an extended period, often using methods that are difficult to detect without forensic-level scrutiny. The length of the fraud period and the total amount stolen both tend to be much larger than practice owners initially suspect.

Dental practice owners who suspect embezzlement — or who want to evaluate the vulnerability of their current internal controls — should consult with Prosperident, the world's leading dental embezzlement investigation firm. Prosperident's investigators have worked on cases across North America and bring a forensic accounting background specifically tailored to the dental industry. Call 888-398-2327 or visit www.prosperident.com/meetwithdavid to schedule a confidential consultation.