January 29, 2018
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
Three Western Oklahoma bank tellers have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for their parts in embezzling well over $400-thousand dollars from a local bank.
The three were sentenced Thursday to federal prison for conspiracy to embezzle funds from a federally insured bank.
26-year-old Breanna Lashea Vinson, 27-year-old Kayla Rene Jackson, both from Elk City and 27-year-old Shanquaie Stevenson of Weatherford pleaded guilty on August 17, 2017 to separate one-count Informations charging them with conspiracy to embezzle funds from mid-2014 to 2016 at Great Plains National Bank in Elk City.
According to the Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma Robert J. Troester, a U.S. District Judge Thursday sentenced Vinson and Stevenson each to 18 months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release.
The judge sentenced Jackson to one year and one day in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release.
Vinson, Stevenson, and Jackson were GPNB tellers who had access to the bank’s cash vault. At their plea hearings, the defendants admitted that they routinely stole cash from GPNB’s vault or teller drawers, and they created false vault balancing sheets to conceal the missing cash.
In October 2016, GPNB officials discovered that the vault and a teller drawer were missing $427,632.90. Jackson stopped working at GPNB in April 2016. Vinson and Stevenson were still employees of the bank when the cash shortage was discovered.
In addition to their sentences, the defendants were ordered to pay restitution to GPNB and an insurance company. Vinson was ordered to pay $317,432.90 in restitution, and Stevenson was ordered to pay $247,432.90 in restitution. Jackson was ordered to pay $157,432.90 in restitution. Judge Miles-LaGrange ordered $147,432.90 of each defendant’s restitution amount to be joint and several with the other defendants.
This case was the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris M. Stephens prosecuted the case.
–30 –