United States Attorney Richard B. Roper
Northern District of Texas

SAN ANGELO, TEXAS, BOOKKEEPER SENTENCED TO FEDERAL PRISON
FOR DEFRAUDING EMPLOYER OF $200,000

LUBBOCK, Tx. — Tonya McGuire Stalcup, who admitted defrauding her employer, Wool Growers Central Storage Co., Inc., (Wool Growers) in Ozona, Texas, was sentenced this morning, announced U.S. Attorney Richard B. Roper of the Northern District of Texas. U.S. District Judge Sam R Cummings sentenced Stalcup to 33 months in prison and ordered her to pay $200,000 restitution. Stalcup, 39, of San Angelo, Texas, pled guilty in May to a one count information charging that she defrauded and swindled her employer of approximately $200,000. Judge Cummings ordered that Stalcup surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on August 24, 2007.

Tonya McGuire Stalcup began working as a bookkeeper at Wool Growers in 1998. Wool Growers operated warehouses that stored mohair and wool until it could be sold. It also acted as an agent and fiduciary for mohair and wool producers. If a producer agreed to sell at an offered price, then Wool Growers collected the sales price, deducted storage and commission costs, and then paid the balance to the producer whose mohair or wool had been sold. Wool Growers, which had mohair and wool storage warehouses in Ozona and Sanderson, Texas, also sold farm and ranch supplies.

From approximately August 2001 until May 2006, Stalcup defrauded Wool Growers of $126,658.43 by using her position as a bookkeeper to write approximately 218 unauthorized checks made payable to herself on the Wool Growers’ and its subsidiary, Sanderson’s, bank accounts. During this same time period, Stalcup also stole cash from Wool Growers.

In addition she ran another scheme from approximately July 2004 until April 2006, in which she took approximately $7,977.85 from Wool Growers by placing unauthorized orders for goods she represented were placed in inventory, when, in fact, she took the goods for her own personal use. Two of the fraudulent transactions were for saddles.

U.S. Attorney Roper commended the investigative efforts of the Texas Rangers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger McRoberts of the Lubbock, Texas, U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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