An employee at a Los Angeles business management firm was charged on Monday with embezzling more than $700,000 from her clients, including actor Charlton Heston who died earlier this month. ( Reuters )
Sharon Walker, 56, was charged with two counts of grand theft by embezzlement for forging her clients' signatures to pay her own credit card bills, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said in a statement.
Walker is accused of stealing some $50,000 from Oscar winner Heston and his wife, Lydia, and $150,000 from Emmy winning television writer and producer Stephen Cannell and his wife, Marcia, the District Attorney's office said.
If convicted, Walker faces 11 years in prison.
Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar for his title role in "Ben-Hur" and played Moses in 1956's "The Ten Commandments," died on April 6 in Beverly Hills after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Cannell wrote and produced popular TV shows such as "The Rockford Files" starring James Garner in the 1970s and "21 Jump Street" with Johnny Depp in the 1980s.