Bookkeeper sentenced to prison for stealing $453K from family-owned Iowa trucking company

An Iowa woman was sentenced to federal prison for a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from her trucking company employer.

On October 30, 2024, Leann Marie Rouse, 51, was sentenced to two years in federal prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa. Rouse was also ordered to pay $453,672.68 to her former employer, a family-owned trucking company based in Traer, Iowa.

On May 31, 2024, Rouse pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

Officials say that Rouse was hired by the trucking company as a bookkeeper in 2011. In her role as a bookkeeper, she had access to financial records and payroll.

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

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.  

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tama County Sheriff’s Office.