Brandon woman indicted on federal wire fraud charge
By:
Staff report
Sheila Verbrugge, 50, of Brandon, was federally indicted on a wire fraud charge that alleges she issued company checks from a Brandon trucking firm to herself.
Verbrugge was indicted by a federal grand jury on 16 wire fraud charges.
On Aug. 25, she offered a “not guilty” plea.
Verbrugge, who was employed as the billing and payroll clerk at Blachowske Truck Line, Inc., is accused diverting money into her personal bank account. Verbrugge managed the trucking firm’s T-Chek account, which is used to pay for job-related expenses for truck drivers, as noted by U.S. Attorney for the District of South Dakota Ron Parsons. T-Check emailed a weekly invoice to Blachowske for the week’s charges, which Verbrugge would pay.
She is accused of issuing T-Check payments to her personal bank account and altering the weekly report over a 10-year period (January 2010 to April 2010). Verbrugge would delete her name and location and replace it with the names of truck drivers and locations associated with those drivers.
The indictment did not specify the amount of money she allegedly diverted from the company.
