Woman pleads guilty to embezzling

A Kalispell woman has pleaded guilty to felony theft after embezzling thousands of dollars from a local law firm.

Melissa Weis, 26, admitted during a hearing Thursday in Flathead District Court that she took approximately $6,600 from Best and Westover Law Firm between August and December of 2013 while employed by the company.

Weis embezzled the money by taking cash deposits and writing checks to herself from the firm’s account.

A plea agreement in the case includes a recommendation that she receive a four-year, deferred sentence to the Montana Department of Corrections when she is sentenced July 7. The recommendation also stipulates that she pay restitution.

District Judge Heidi Ulbricht noted that deferred sentences as opposed to suspended sentences are not generally offered in embezzlement cases, and that the recommendation came at the request of her former employers, who wanted her to have the opportunity to have the felony conviction scrubbed from her record.