Oklahoma woman sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for embezzling over $450,000, filing a false tax return

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma woman was sentenced Tuesday to 37 months in federal prison for stealing nearly half a million dollars from her employer and filing a false federal tax return, announced Robert J. Troester, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma.

This case resulted from an investigation conducted by the Oklahoma City Economic and Identity Crimes Task Force, which includes the following agencies: U.S. Secret Service, FBI, Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Criminal Investigations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Oklahoma Highway Patrol; and the Oklahoma police departments of: Oklahoma City, Edmond, Moore and Norman.

According to charges filed on June 14, 2017, Kay Ann Locke, of Edmond, Oklahoma, worked as a bookkeeper at Delta Promotions Team Corporation in Oklahoma City from 2005 until April 2016. In 2011, she was instructed to close a company credit card. She kept the credit card open, however, and used it and another company credit card for personal purchases and cash advances totaling $454,824.69. She then committed wire fraud by using company funds to pay these credit card bills.

Locke was also charged with filing a false 2015 personal federal income tax return. That return reported less than $30,000 of total income. She knew when she signed the return that her income was substantially higher based on the money she had embezzled from her employer.

Locke pleaded guilty to both charges on July 27, 2017.

On Feb. 27, 2018, U.S. District Judge David L. Russell sentenced Locke to 37 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. The court also ordered her to pay $552,667.64 in restitution, which will be paid first to her former employer and then to the IRS.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris M. Stephens prosecuted the case.