AMARILLO, Texas—Dorothy Stegall Barnes, who is also known as Dorothy Stegall Newman, a former employee of Pantex FCU, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for stealing $826,000 from the CU over a period of 14 years.
Barnes, 56, was also ordered to pay back $797,336. She was sentenced in U.S. federal court for the northern district of Texas on one count of embezzling from a federally insured credit union.
Barnes had pled guilty to the charge in September and accepted a plea bargain from the U.S. Attorney’s office for cooperating with the FBI.
Barnes’ theft occurred from September 1996 to November 2010.
The missing funds were initially noticed in October 2014, when Barnes told the credit union president another teller had quit. She was assigned to count that teller’s vault and reported the vault was short $380,000, the Amarillo Globe News reported.
In the ensuing audit, it was discovered that Barnes transferred $826,000 to her vault. She admitted to that transfer, but not to the transfer of $380,000.
Barnes said she took the money to pay for “toys” for her husband, who later died, federal court records show.
As part of her sentencing, Barnes was ordered to pay back $5,000 to Pantex and $792,336.47 to CUNA Mutual, which covered the credit union’s losses.
U.S. district judge Mary Lou Robinson recommended that Barnes be sent to a prison where she can receive medical attention for her heart condition. Barnes had heart surgery in 2008 and has a pacemaker, the Amarillo Globe News reported.