WICHITA, KANSAS—A former employee of a bank in Crawford County who stole $2.5 million from her employer was sentenced last week to five years and 10 months in federal prison, officials said.
Cynthia Bright, 54, Girard, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. In her plea, she admitted she stole the money over a period of 10 years while working as operations supervisor at Girard National Bank.
Bright used several different methods to steal the money, according to authorities.
In some cases, officials said she wrote checks on her own accounts and altered electronic bank records so the checks would clear but the money would not be taken out of her account. She also removed paper checks and altered records in other cases to post checks to other accounts. She diverted funds from the bank’s accounts to her own accounts, and she wrote large counter checks to conceal losses.