“Like many busy executives, E. Scott Mead, a top banker at Goldman Sachs, trusted his secretary to help him run his life. Beyond answering the telephone and setting his schedule, she helped organize family vacations and managed his expense account,” writes Andrew Sorkin in today’s New York Times.

“Mr. Mead may have trusted her too much. The secretary, Joyti De-Laurey, is to appear in court today in London, charged with embezzling more than $5 million from Mr. Mead in an elaborate fraud in which she is accused of wiring blocks of his money to bank accounts in Cyprus.”

“Ms. De-Laurey has not yet entered a plea in her case, and her lawyer in London declined to comment on it.”

“Accusations of grand theft, it turns out, are not so uncommon among the trusted set of career secretaries and executive assistants who juggle the lives of the powerful and wealthy from cubicles outside corner offices. The phenomenon goes uncounted, so it is impossible to assess trends in secretarial swindles, but court files around the United States hold dozens of cases, from petty abuse of an executive’s credit cards to complex conspiracies.”

“Generally, security experts attribute such episodes to a lack of oversight and an abundance of envy.”

” ‘You have high-end lawyers and high-powered bankers working 16 to 18 hour days living on airplanes,’ said Daniel E. Karson, executive managing director at Kroll, the big investigations and security firm. ‘They leave a lot of discretion to secretaries,” he said, “and there is a perception that no one is watching.’ ”

“Then temptation takes hold, said Toby Bishop, president of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. ‘When you’re a staffer working for someone who travels to the best places, wears expensive clothes and makes lots of money,’ he said, ‘it’s hard not to be envious and think you should share in that person’s success.’ “