Danielle Marie Stanley, the former bookkeeper for Christian Builders based in Bullard, is charged property theft worth $30,000 to $150,000.
BULLARD, Texas — Arrest documents allege an East Texas woman stole over $67,000 from the construction company she was working at for over two years.
Danielle Marie Stanley, the former bookkeeper for Christian Builders based in Bullard, is charged property theft worth $30,000 to $150,000 for allegedly embezzling about $67,670.84 from the owners’ business accounts, according to arrest documents.
“I never really dreamed this would have happened, especially with somebody that we had gotten as close to as we had gotten with her,” owner of Christian Builders David Christian said. “We considered her part of the family.”
Stanley was arrested Wednesday and bonded out of the Smith County Jail the same day.
She had worked for the company since May 2023 and she had never been given permission to sign checks for the business accounts. On July 3, co-owner Tina Christian noticed the accounts were low in funds, leading her to conduct an internal audit. She found that Stanley wrote about $7,000 in fraudulent checks to herself, the arrest affidavit read.
“When I contacted her, she told me she had done it two times and agreed to pay part of it back, and so I was working To get that money back as quickly as possible,” he said.
The Christians learned that Stanley had confessed to stealing from the company to pay off her own credit card debt. On July 7, the Christians confronted Stanley about the theft, and she said that she would pay them back. That same morning, Stanley paid them $7,111.13 via her credit card and $2,328.48 in cash, but even with that repayment, Stanley still owed $58,231.23 to the Christians, the document stated.
The affidavit says Stanley altered entries in the business’ accounting software to hide unauthorized payments to herself. She made it seem like the payments were for legitimate things, such as office supplies and software. She would also make it look like checks were going to contractors that worked for Christian Builders.
Tina Christian confirmed the checks written by Stanley were forged with Tina and David Christian’s signature. Records showed the false checks date from May 2024 to June 2025.
“It’s hard for me to believe that somebody could spend that kind of money that regularly and not have a trace of it,” David Christian said.
The theft has since rocked their business, cut into an employee’s commission, disrupting daily work and forced the owners to cover losses out of pocket.
“It’s definitely affected every aspect of our life, from our personal finances to our company’s finances,” he said.
David said Stanley owns a company called Next Level Bookkeeping and urged others to learn from their mistakes.
“The one piece of advice I would give is just do a forensic audit of your accounts every month,” David Christian said. “If you’re going to have somebody doing all your bill paying and payroll, then that person needs to be completely separated from who’s doing your bookkeeping and tax information.”
