Ronan woman sentenced for embezzlement, tax evasion

A Ronan woman who admitted stealing more than $300,000 from her employer and evading paying income taxes was sentenced Friday to 25 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution.

According to U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, Kerry Snow Yeager, 48, pleaded guilty in October to wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and tax evasion.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen presided. Judge Christensen ordered $252,740 in restitution, with $216,231 to the victim owner and $36,509 to the IRS.

The prosecution said in court documents that Yeager had worked for a company in Ronan for several years and embezzled $316,231 from the firm beginning in 2015 until August 2017.

Yeager used various methods to steal the money including unauthorized cash withdrawals at ATMs, unauthorized use of a company debit card and cashing and depositing checks written on the company’s account with a forged signature of the victim owner.

Yeager also failed to pay taxes on the embezzled money in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

The victim owner discovered Yeager was stealing in August 2017. When confronted, Yeager admitted to the fraud. After the fraud was discovered, a relative of Yeager’s paid the victim owner $100,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Racicot prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation Division.