Discovery Bay Resident Receives Twenty Six-Month Sentence For Committing Bank Fraud

On August 14, 2014, Brittany Lebon was sentenced today to 26 months in prison, and ordered to pay $364,698.86 in restitution for embezzling from her employer and committing bank fraud, announced United States Attorney Melinda Haag and U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Andrew Adelmann.

Lebon pleaded guilty on June 18, 2014, to five counts of bank fraud. According to the plea agreement, Lebon admitted that, while employed as a bookkeeper at a paving business owned by her family, she embezzled funds and defrauded financial institutions into crediting the stolen funds to her personal accounts. Specifically, beginning in March 2009, and continuing through August 2011, Lebon created and printed one-hundred and two unauthorized checks, totaling $364,698.86. On seventy-three of those checks, Lebon forged the signature of her supervisor (who was her uncle); on the remaining twenty-nine checks she fraudulently obtained her uncle’s signature by representing to him that she would direct the payments to a union trust fund. Lebon caused ninety-six checks to be deposited into her personal accounts at three different financial institutions. Lebon made the remaining six checks, totaling $3,449.13, payable to a utility company, to pay for her personal utility bills.

Lebon, 30, of Discovery Bay, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 25, 2012. She was charged with ten counts of bank fraud, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. Upon her sentencing, the government moved to dismiss the seven counts to which Lebon did not enter a plea.

The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, United States District Court Judge, following Lebon’s guilty plea on five counts of bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344. Judge Gonzalez Rogers also sentenced the defendant to a 5-year period of supervised release, and ordered her to pay $500.00 in special assessment. The defendant will begin serving the sentence on Oct. 1, 2014.

Thomas E. Stevens is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Patti Lau. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the United States Secret Service.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/can/news/2014/2014_08_14_lebon.sentenced.press.html