Woman pleads guilty to embezzling more than $400,000

A woman on Tuesday pleaded guilty embezzling and spending more than $420,000 from Great Falls businesses during her time as a bookkeeper.

Natalee Christine Crumley, 24, pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. She also pleaded guilty to forfeiture.

Crumley on Tuesday reversed her initial pleas without a plea agreement from the U.S. District Attorney’s Office. After submitting her guilty pleas, Crumley faces a possible 32 years in federal prison and a maximum $750,000 fine.

She was initially charged in Cascade County District Court in August with two counts of forgery common scheme. The Cascade County Attorney’s Office was granted a motion to dismiss the district court charges after federal charges were filed in U.S. District Court in January.

Charges claimed that Crumley forged about 112 checks from businesses during her time as a bookkeeper for JCCS, a Great Falls accounting firm. According to court documents, Crumley embezzled and stole more than $420,000 between June 9, 2015, and Aug. 5, 2016.

Charging documents state Crumley forged checks from Doors & Hardware and Anderson Glass, using the business owners’ forged signatures to deposit checks into her own account.

Crumley said at her hearing that she knew embezzling the money was wrong.

“I did turn around and scheme money from the system, while I did know it was wrong,” she said. She said she used the Quickbooks program to make the checks appear like they were written from the client to be paid to vendors, although the checks were written to Crumley.

Crumley told U.S. District of Montana Judge Brian Morris at the hearing she was inspired by a business owner, who had described to her another bookkeeper committing the same embezzlement scheme and getting away with it.

She testified Tuesday that her initial motivation for embezzling the money was to help out her boyfriend’s family, who was “having a really rough time,” Crumley said.

“The need at the beginning was most definitely justified,” she said.

After a certified independent auditor did not catch her embezzlement in the first year, Crumley’s fraudulent spending emboldened. After depositing the stolen money into her personal account, she withdrew more than $140,000 in cash and purchased NCAA Final Four basketball tournament tickets for her and four friends, as well as furniture, clothes and trips to Miami, Long Beach, Houston and Spokane.

Morris, noting her education as a Simms High School graduate nearing graduation at Park University in Great Falls, asked whether she thought she would be caught. Crumley said that although she continued embezzling after eluding the company’s auditor, she did not believe the scheme would go unnoticed forever.

“I knew that was going to happen,” she responded. “Every single time I did it I knew it was wrong.”

Morris asked if the money she embezzled had already been spent.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s all gone.”

Morris set Crumley’s sentencing for July 27.