Some people learn from their mistakes, and some people just find a new place to make them.

When a woman discovered her former boss had been embezzling tens of thousands of dollars through fake expense receipts, she kept the information to herself for years.

But when the same former boss applied for a job at her company, she questioned whether she should speak up.

Keep reading for the full story.

WIBTA if I told HR about a potential hire having a history of embezzling?

About 10 years ago when I was getting back into the workforce after having kids, I was briefly an admin assistant at a college.

Part of my job was reconciling expenses for my superiors.

Usually she didn’t come across anything serious on the job.

Most of it was mundane, except my direct boss kept failing to give me receipts, or gave me receipts that were really just scribbles on a piece of paper for art.

When I asked questions, he would always insist that Kenya or Thailand or wherever he had been didn’t have receipts.

Since she was so green, she didn’t really have the experience to suspect him of any wrongdoing.

It was a line he said often, and it seemed likely my predecessor had just accepted it. But I had traveled extensively and knew that couldn’t possibly be true.

I was new and had no proof of wrongdoing, so I would send those expenses (always substantial and often cash withdrawals) on to the next level with a note that no receipt existed, as per internal protocol.

She did start to notice a few things out of order, though.

Over time I also noticed that the art or whatever he purchased was not on display in our offices, but it was a big campus so I assumed it was possible it was in one of the other buildings.

Still, I asked a lot of questions as the months went by, and each trip’s expenses looked the same odd way.

But before she could piece at all together…

He fired me during my probationary period in a way that led to the institution retracting his termination letter and giving me substantial severance in addition to my unemployment.

He put in writing that I was failing to read his mind — so, not a thing I wanted to take to an employment lawyer.

It was frustrating and seemed catastrophic at the time because my husband had just been laid off, but ultimately I got a better job with great benefits elsewhere.

But the employee hired after her started to pick up on things too.

After I left, my replacement also noticed the bizarreness of his expenses.

She went a step further and actually set up a meeting with a superior, and took the risk of directly pointing out the pattern of money leaving for goods that didn’t seem to exist within the institution.

So when she was called in as a witness,

They called me in to ask me some questions, and I was able to validate that he was indeed claiming receipts didn’t exist in various countries.

Eventually, because of our combined paper trail, a forensic accountant got involved.

Finally, they were able to prove this leader was doing something wrong.

The rumored amount embezzled was $85K. There was no question he had been embezzling, but he made a deal to repay it and left the institution eventually.

He went on to work elsewhere in another state, which I only know because I used to see him at conferences for our shared field.

The two went their separate ways and it seemed everyone had mostly moved on.

He stayed in academia, though at a much less prestigious university.

I’m on the industry side, and frankly we pay better, so I was always privately amused when I would run into him.

Until now, I never said a thing to anyone on the industry side.

Still, she questions her moral responsibility in all this.

I do not know what happened at his last institution, but he has been applying on the industry side, and I’m on the review panel at my job.

On paper his credentials are great, but we have corporate cards and we travel.

Part of me says he’s probably learned his lesson, and part of me remembers just how arrogant and blatantly he was stealing when we worked together.

WIBTA if I gave HR a heads up?

Some paper trails never really go cold — they just wait for the right moment to resurface.

What did Reddit have to say about all this?

This user thinks telling is the right thing to do.

No one wants to hire someone this dishonest.

Choosing not to speak up could lead to even more trouble for her.

Her job is to simply bring all relevant information to light.

It’s almost like the entire paper trail was leading up to this very moment.

Funny how karma comes around.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.