CHEYENNE – U.S. Attorney Christopher A. Crofts recently announced that 37-year-old Sheridan resident Alecia Rae Bolton was sentenced by Chief United States District Court Judge Nancy Freudenthal to serve 51 months in prison for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.
In addition, Judge Freudenthal ordered Bolton to pay approximately $86,000 in restitution to the victims of her fraud. These charges arose from Bolton’s theft of approximately $23,000 from the Sheridan chapter of Trout Unlimited and approximately $63,000 from her former employer Cedars Health Clinics between February 2014 and April 2015.
Specifically, as the volunteer treasurer of the Little Big Horn Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Bolton wrote unauthorized checks from the group’s checking account to pay her personal expenses. To accomplish and conceal this fraud, Bolton forged the signatures of other Trout Unlimited officers on various checks.
As an office employee and accounts receivable manager for Cedars Health Clinics, Bolton stole patient payments made to the clinic by depositing checks and transferring electronic payments into accounts she controlled.
In addition to stealing patient payments, Defendant Bolton stole Cedars’ money by writing unauthorized checks from the clinic’s bank account. In doing so, Bolton forged the signature of another Cedars’ employee on the unauthorized checks.
This case was investigated by the Sheridan Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Heimann.