Bookkeeper sent to prison for defrauding Great Falls electric, repair shops over years

In a scheme that started in the late ’90s, a Great Falls bookkeeper defrauded local businesses $500,000 using pre-signed checks to pay off personal and family debt. She was sentenced Monday to 25 months in prison with three years supervised release.

Tara Durnell, 63, pleaded guilty in July to wire fraud and to mail fraud and was ordered by the court to pay $492,309 in total restitution, according to the Montana U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Starting in at least 1997, Durnell used her access to pre-signed company checks and company bank accounts at Kronebusch Electric, Inc., where she worked as a bookkeeper, to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars toward personal credit card debt, personal car loan payments and debts belonging to family members.

She used her access to the company’s accounting software to hide her theft and make the transactions appear like legitimate business expenses, stealing a total of $500,000 from the Conrad-based electric company.

After her scheme was discovered by Kronebusch Electric, Durnell went to work as a bookkeeper at Mitchell’s Crash Repair in Great Falls, where she again used pre-signed checks to steal more than $15,400.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Bookkeeper sent to prison for defrauding Great Falls businesses