Former Tiffany Executive Is Accused of Stealing Jewelry The woman had jewelry to sell: diamond bracelets and rings with precious stones in 18-karat gold, and other items that she said were hers "and free of any legal encumbrances," according to a form she signed. What the woman, a Tiffany & Company executive, did not disclose was how the jewelry managed to become free of legal encumbrances. The authorities said on Tuesday that the executive, Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, 46, took valuables from Tiffany and then effectively wrote them off the company's books, using a practice that allows items to be canceled from inventory under certain circumstances. She was arrested at her home in Darien, Conn., on Tuesday morning on charges of wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property, prosecutors said. Ms. Lederhaas-Okun and her husband were paid about $1.3 million by a leading Manhattan buyer and reseller of jewelry, before it was discovered that she had been selling Tiffany merchandise, the authorities said. They said Ms. Lederhaas-Okun lost her job as vice president of product development at Tiffany in February as part of an overall company downsizing. Tiffany then conducted an inventory review that showed that since November 2012, she had checked out about 165 pieces of jewelry with a retail value of about $1.2 million. It was the company's practice to count every item worth more than $25,000 each day that it was checked out, a policy Ms. Lederhaas-Okun would have been aware of, the authorities said. Each piece of jewelry that she had checked out was valued at less than $10,000. A criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan says that most of the more than 200 pieces of jewelry sold to the jewelry reseller matched the type and description of items that Ms. Lederhaas-Okun had checked out while working at Tiffany and were missing from its inventory. "Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun went from a vice president at a high-end jewelry company to jewel thief," said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. The charges were announced by Mr. Bharara and George Venizelos, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York office. Ms. Lederhaas-Okun was released on bond by a federal magistrate judge on Tuesday. Her lawyer declined to comment when reached by phone after the proceeding. A spokeswoman for Tiffany said, "In deference to the U.S. attorney's investigation, we are not in a position to comment at this time." According to the complaint, Ms. Lederhaas-Okun's job duties included ensuring that product designs could be manufactured, and in that role, she was allowed to check out jewelry for work-related reasons, like showing it to potential manufacturers to determine the cost of producing it. She was also able to "write off" or cancel the cost of jewelry that had been rendered unusable, the complaint noted. Usually, such items were returned to the company's stock and destroyed, the complaint noted. The jewelry she checked out included diamond bracelets in 18-karat gold, platinum or gold diamond drop-and-hoop earrings, platinum diamond rings, and platinum and diamond pendants, the authorities said. An F.B.I. special agent, Elliot C. McGinnis, said in the complaint that he had reviewed records from a bank account belonging to Ms. Lederhaas-Okun and her husband, and found that about 75 checks from the jewelry reseller had been deposited. The complaint does not identify the husband, and he has not been charged in the case.