Credit union employee sentenced for embezzling

MISSOULA — Charlo resident Kathleen Sammons was sentenced in federal court July 8 to 30 days in jail and five years supervised release for her role in embezzling and laundering money from the Whitefish Credit Union in Polson.

According to officials at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Montana Office, Sammons, 52, pleaded guilty March 29 to the crimes. By her own admission, Sammons first started stealing from the credit union in 1998.

A teller at the time, Sammons stole money from her cash drawer and continued to do so for the next 10 years. The magnitude of her crimes increased when she was promoted to Polson branch manager in 2009.

Court documents state that Sammons’ fraud was uncovered during a surprise June 2010 audit in which investigators found the Polson branch’s vault to be $676,000 short.

The money laundering charge stems from Whitefish Credit Union records that show Sammons conducted “transactions” in which she made large cash withdrawals from customer accounts, added the funds to the vault cash account for easy access, and then reversed the general ledger entry.

According to the Department of Justice, during one such “transaction,” Sammons removed $210,000 from a customer’s account. When the FBI interviewed that customer, he stated that he had not authorized the transaction and, in fact, had no idea that the transaction had occurred.

Court documents also state that Sammons told federal investigators that with the stolen money she “paid for high school sports banquets and trips, bought a house in Dillon, covered thefts of cash by other credit union employees and in general, enhanced her personal income.”

In addition to jail time, Sammons had been ordered to pay $676,872 in restitution. Her five-year supervised release includes 17 months of home confinement.