Sonoma resident charged with $100,000 grand larceny in New York

Sonoma resident Valerie A. Robins has been charged with stealing over $100,000 from her former employer, Otto Preminger Films, based in New York state. Deputies picked up Robins, age 61, at her residence on Princeton Drive in the Boyes Hot Springs on Jan. 31. The Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore is charging Robins with one count of grand larceny in the second degree.
Over a period of approximately three years, from Jan. 1, 2002 to Feb. 24, 2005, Robins, then production manager for Otto Preminger Films Ltd., allegedly stole $100,411 from the company. Before moving to Northern California, the defendant had been living in a small town in Westchester County. She was a signatory on the bank accounts for, and had sole control over, Otto Preminger Films, Ltd., running the company out of her Mount Kisco, New York home.
Robins is charged with using a corporate American Express card in her name to charge personal expenses totaling $77,389, which she then paid with corporate funds without the knowledge, permission or authority of the late Preminger’s widow, Mrs. Hope Preminger. And she is to have used the corporate bank account to pay school tuition expenses totaling $23,022 for her minor children, again without appropriate authorization.
In 1991, Robins directed a biopic entitled “Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker,” a profile of the Austrian-born director who died in New York City in 1986.
Westchester County opened an investigation against Robins in 2006 based on a complaint from Mrs. Preminger. The defendant waived extradition and was transported by the Westchester County Police Warrant Squad from California to the Westchester County Jail, where she is held with bail set at $25,000. Robins faces a maximum of five to fifteen years in state prison if convicted and is due to appear in court next on February 24.