A woman from Iowa has been sentenced to federal prison after being involved in a scheme to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from her employer, a trucking company.
On October 30, 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa announced that Leann Marie Rouse, aged 51, received a two-year prison sentence followed by three years of supervised release. Additionally, Rouse was ordered to pay $453,672.68 in restitution to her former employer, a family-owned trucking company located in Traer, Iowa.
Rouse admitted his guilt on May 31, 2024, for committing wire fraud.
According to officials, the trucking company hired Rouse as a bookkeeper in 2011. As a bookkeeper, she had access to financial records and payroll.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has made an announcement regarding the matter.
From January 2015, through August 20, 2020, Rouse issued approximately 242 unauthorized checks to herself from the trucking company, stealing at least $453,672.68. Rouse hid her fraud by using the trucking company’s financial accounting software to change the entries in the software to reflect that the unauthorized funds were business expenditures related to various entities that did business with the trucking company.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tama County Sheriff’s Office conducted an investigation into the case.
