Ag/Outdoor, News

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The former bookkeeper of a western Iowa farming cooperative is admitting she embezzled roughly $1.4 million over six years. Kathy Joan Cullen, who worked 27 years for the 21st Century Cooperative in Cass County, pleaded guilty Wednesday to filing a false tax return.

Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, she admitted that she wrote nearly $1.4 million in checks to herself from 2008 to 2013 and deposited the funds in her personal bank account. The plea agreement says the state and federal government lost $553,000 in tax revenues as a result. In 2009 alone, she embezzled $300,000 from the cooperative, which she didn’t report as income.

The agreement calls for her to pay restitution to the cooperative. Cullen was released after Wednesday’s hearing in Des Moines. Sentencing is Oct. 1st. Filing a false tax return carries a maximum term of three years imprisonment, up to a $100,000 fine, and up to one year of supervised release.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.