It sucks to get fired.   It's humiliating, and it's poverty-inducing.   It's just about the worst thing you can imagine happening to you at the workplace.  But it's not.

What's worse is this:  not only getting fired, but also getting arrested or charged with a crime.

What's the likelihood of that?   Not as low as you might think.   A recent report by four professors who specialize in nonprofit accounting put the amount of money that is embezzled from nonprofit organizations alone at 40 billion dollars in 2006.   The typical theft from a charity, according to this study, is committed by a female employee with no criminal record who earns less than $50,000 a year and has worked for the nonprofit at least three years. The typical amount stolen: less than $40,000.

Add to that all of the petty, or not-so-petty, theft that occurs at for-profit companies – according to one estimate, all organizations lose on average 6 percent of their revenue to fraud every year – and you have an awful lot of employees who wake up one morning – or are woken up – to the news that they have just been put on "unpaid administrative leave" (if not summarily fired) pending investigation of alleged fraud.   Oh, and by the way: the police have been contacted and will likely be calling you soon.

This is a very, very, lousy way to start a day.

Nor is there any surefire way of avoiding having this disaster happen to you.   Sure, it helps if you're not pilfering from petty cash or having your company or nonprofit write checks to fictitious organizations you've created for that purpose, and it helps if you don't have a drug or gambling problem that will tend to lead to those acts.  But lots of small companies and nonprofits have accounting and cash management control procedures that can best be described as … nonexistent.  Money comes in, money goes out.   Sometimes there's not as much money left in the bank as your boss or bosses think there should be.   The finger of suspicion can easily point to you, even if you did nothing wrong.

So what do you do when the pointing finger points at you?   Here are a few tips:

First, take a deep, deep breath.   You're about to embark upon some of what are likely to be the worst days of your life so far.   You're going to need to stay calm and thoughtful.   Don't panic.   Don't run around like a maniac.   Cool it.

Second, clam up.  The most human impulse in this situation is to try to explain your innocence, or at least your lack of truly culpable intent.   ("I wasn't trying to defraud the company; I just was borrowing the money and was going to give it back.")   This will not save your job, which is almost certainly gone anyway, and it may land you in prison.   If you're being accused of fraud or embezzlement, you're being accused of a crime, and if you're accused of a crime, you have to start thinking like a potential criminal defendant.   You've got "the right to remain silent."   Use it.

Third, get legal help.   In other posts, I've given people "self-help" advice regarding how to deal with an impending firing or layoff.   Some of that advice will apply in this situation, too, such as the advice not to resign, because resigning will simply give up what little bargaining leverage you might have.   But even in the worst scenario where you're simply being fired from your job for no good reason, being fired is pretty much the worst of it.   You will get another job.  You will put this behind you. 

When you've been accused of committing a crime against your employer, however, not only your future employability (who wants to hire a convicted embezzler, even after they've paid their debt to society?) but your liberty may be at stake.   You can have no higher priority in this situation than to contact a good criminal defense attorney – preferably one who also knows something about employment law – to advise you.

And in the meantime, remember tip number 2 and be sure to keep your mouth shut.   If people did not speak to the police and other investigators who may come calling, the jails of this country would be pretty much empty.   The United States already has both the highest per capita incarceration rate and highest total prison population in the world. 

Believe me, you do not want to be a part of that statistic so take a deep breath, exercise your right to keep your mouth shut, and get someone on your side pronto.  Hopefully before you know it, this will all be a bad memory.