On November 27, 2012, the US Attorney’s office for the District of Montana announced that Devries was sentenced to 110 months in prison and ordered to pay $3,811,221.52 in restitution. She was sentenced for her role in a large bank fraud and embezzlement scheme, credit card fraud scheme, and money laundering scheme.
Devries was the former vice president of operations for First Security Bank (FSB) in Malta. All FSB deposits are federally insured.
According to court documents, Devries had a total of $40,000 in credit card debt by January 2001. She was able to maintain such a large amount of debt because she transferred the balances to new credit cards.
She was eventually declined by a credit card company in January of 2001. However, with her position at FSB, Devries was able to approve a “high limit” of credit debt. After the credit card company declined, she opened a credit card account with FSB on January 4, 2001. The account was opened in the name of RI Inc with a limit of $900,000.
After she opened the first account without detection, she opened a second fraudulent account under the name ADRD on September 14, 2001. She proceeded to open two more accounts on May 7, 2009 and June 2, 2011 under the names of ADCDED and ABC123.
By the time the embezzlement was discovered in May of 2012 the four accounts had balances of $1,100,243, $1,087,562, $1,180,329, and $304,493. Devries was able to avoid detection at FSB using a variety of methods, but she was caught after Fidelity National Information Systems (NIS) reported suspicious activity to FSB in three of the accounts.
Devries charged a total of $3,672,627 to the four accounts.
U.S. Attorney Michael W. Cotter stated: “The future of First Security Bank is uncertain, but Devries’ crimes have caused a grievous financial wound. When a community bank is forced out of business because of external economic forces or internal corruption, it is a sad day for our rural way of life.”
Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation
