By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
WEIR, Kan. — A former vice president of Citizens Bank of Weir was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation and ordered to repay the bank $239,098 she embezzled to pay off gambling debts.
Martha Thompson, 59, known locally as Marlane Thompson, had worked for the bank for 43 years. Her employment ended in August 2007, and she was indicted in December. Her sentence was handed down in U.S. District Court in Wichita, said Jim Cross, spokesman for U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren.
Bank President Joe Fowler said Wednesday that because of Thompson’s crime, bank regulators have all but shut the bank down.
“What she did has caused a lot of trouble for that little bank,” Fowler said. “It’s been a rough year.”
Fowler said he thinks the sentence is too light. He said many people have suffered because of the situation.
“It’s not just the people in the bank; it’s been hard on the town,” he said.
In her plea agreement in May, Thompson admitted to lending herself money from the bank to pay gambling debts she had accumulated at Oklahoma casinos. When it was announced that a bank audit was to begin, Thompson combined several of her unapproved loans into a single loan totaling $176,000, which she assigned to another bank customer. Thompson also wrote checks to casinos for which there were insufficient funds in her checking account. To prevent the checks from being returned, she “force cleared” the checks and issued a loan to herself.
Fowler said the checks were written to Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Okla.
When she was confronted by a bank inspector about the loans, the defendant left the bank and later returned, writing an apology to the bank president for her actions.
Thompson could have faced a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine and the restitution. The government agreed to recommend a sentence at the low end of the sentencing guidelines.
Thompson’s attorney, E. Jay Greeno, on Tuesday filed a motion for a downward departure in her sentence, writing in a memorandum that Thompson began gambling in Oklahoma as an escape from unspecified personal tragedies.
“However, as the lure of an escape from her personal difficulties became more and more satisfying to Mrs. Thompson, her gambling, and losses, escalated,” Greeno wrote.
He wrote that Thompson has taken full responsibility and was liquidating assets to pay restitution. He wrote that Thompson’s house in Weir is for sale so she can apply proceeds from the sale to the restitution. She and her husband have moved to rural Cherokee County, he wrote.
Banker’s odds
Asked about the likelihood that Martha Thompson would repay the money she embezzled from Citizens Bank of Weir, bank President Joe Fowler said she might hit a jackpot at a casino.
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Former bank officer granted probation, ordered to pay restitution of $239,000
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