Former Bookkeeper Sentenced to Federal Prison

A woman who stole over $450,000 from a family-owned business was sentenced October 30, 2024, to two years in federal prison.

Leann Marie Rouse, age 51, from Toledo, Iowa, received the prison term after a May 31, 2024 guilty plea to one count of wire fraud.

Evidence disclosed at the sentencing hearing showed that Rouse was hired as a bookkeeper in July 2011 for a trucking company in Traer, Iowa . As bookkeeper, Rouse had access to, and control of, the trucking company's financial accounting software and she handled payroll. From January 2015, through August 20, 2020, Rouse issued approximately 242 unauthorized checks to herself from the trucking company, stealing at least $453,672.68. Rouse hid her fraud by using the trucking company's financial accounting software to change the entries in the software to reflect that the unauthorized funds were business expenditures related to various entities that did business with the trucking company.

Rouse was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Leonard T. Strand. Rouse was sentenced to 24 months' imprisonment, and she was ordered to make $453,672.68 in restitution to the trucking company. She must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Rouse was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on a date yet to be set.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Dillan Edwards and Devra Hake and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tama County Sheriff's Office.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 23-CR-00023-LTS.

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