GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) - A bookkeeper will serve more than three years in prison and repay $425,000 for forging clients’ checks to make lavish purchases, including NCAA Final Four tickets and renting a Ferrari.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris sentenced Natalee Crumley on Tuesday, three months after she pleaded guilty to wire fraud, identity theft and unlawful monetary transactions.
Prosecutors say Crumley forged 146 checks since 2014 while she was working for Junkermier, Clark, Campanella, Stevens, P.C. in Great Falls. She wrote checks to herself from clients’ accounts and forged the clients’ signatures.
Besides the Ferrari rental and the basketball tickets, Crumley used the cash to take vacations and buy furniture and clothes, including significant sums spent at Victoria’s Secret.
Her public defender, R. Henry Branom Jr., told the judge that Crumley was influenced by an abusive relationship.
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