Wal-Mart (WMT) and Best Buy (BBY) recipients of embezzled NASA funds

We'd all love to refurnish our homes for free, and one lady who recently worked for NASA knows that dream all to well. Elizabeth Osborne -- former employee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- used her employer-supplied bank card to set herself up with a plethora of goods from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Best Buy Co. (NYSE: BBY) and other retailers, instead of providing living quarter expenses for the families of astronauts and visiting dignitaries.

Osborne worked for NASA for 31 years, and pleaded guilty last week to embezzling more than $157,000 from the space agency to buy goods for herself instead of for astronauts' families. Osborne would buy items from various retailers for her own personal use and would then falsify records to cover her tracks -- but the game was up when NASA officials found more than 400 fraudulent purchases from 2001 to 2005. Apparently, Osborne's favorite retailers to use embezzled funds at during those years included Lowes Co. Inc. (NYSE: LOW), Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Sears Holdings Corp. (NYSE: SHLD). At Wal-Mart alone, she shopped 157 times during that time period for gift cards and other merchandise totaling $51,000.

Products at other retailers varied from air conditioner units to beds to artwork to booking hotel rooms for family and friends. As such, Osborne faces 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 in addition to paying back NASA for the items she fraudulently charged. Perhaps she can give back all that merchandise and really make U.S. astronauts comfy and warm? Nah, thought not.