Ex-Bookkeeper of PR Firm Hit by Fraud Suit : Litigation: The action by the owner of one of county’s oldest public relations firms also names two banks, a postal service company and a bank officer.

The owner of one of Orange County’s oldest public relations firms has filed a civil lawsuit alleging embezzlement and fraud by a former bookkeeper.

The firm, Gloria Zigner & Associates in Costa Mesa, has sued Betty (Betts) J. Hixon, who left in April after six years as the company’s bookkeeper. The suit seeks to recover an unspecified amount of missing money plus interest and asks the court to order punitive damages.

The suit, filed Sept. 17, names as co-defendants Marine National Bank Inc., Security Pacific National Bank, postal service company MBE Service Corp. and a former officer at Marine National’s Santa Ana branch.

“This is the first we’ve heard of it,” Mark Simmons, president of Marine National, said Wednesday. He said the employee named in the suit, Sharon Bowling, was an operations officer in the Santa Ana office until about six months ago, when she and her husband decided to move to another state.

Peter Magnani, a spokesman for Security Pacific’s parent company, Bank of America, said the bank has not had time to review the suit and does not wish to comment.

Zigner referred calls to her attorney, who could not be reached. Hixon also could not be reached.

The suit alleges that Marine National and the bank officer were negligent in accepting unauthorized signatures and forged endorsements on checks signed by Hixon. Also, it says that the officer directed the bank to withhold Zigner’s mail, including bank statements.

Security Pacific was negligent, the suit alleges, because it gave Zigner’s personal identification number, the code used for access to bank accounts through automatic teller machines, to Hixon. It also says that Security Pacific accepted forged endorsements by Hixon and was negligent because it sent bank statements and other mail, without Zigner’s authorization, to a post office box that Hixon opened at MBE Service Corp.

MBE Service Corp., in turn, was negligent because it accepted mail that belonged to Zigner or her company, the suit says.

Finally, the lawsuit alleges that all five parties were involved in a conspiracy to defraud.

Zigner’s credit reputation was damaged, the suit alleges, because the company’s checks bounced when there was less money than expected in its accounts.

The Costa Mesa Police Department is investigating the complaint, Detective Steve Labbitt said, but has filed no charges.

Zigner & Associates, a 23-year-old agency, has lost three employees since April, when the alleged embezzlement was discovered. It now has six employees, fewer than half the number it had a year ago.