FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 18, 2008
JAMEE LEE FERLIC SENTENCED IN U.S. DISTRICT COURT
Bill Mercer, United States Attorney for the District of Montana, announced today that during a federal court session in Missoula, on July 18, 2008, before U.S. District Donald W. Molloy, JAMEE LEE FERLIC, a 48-year-old resident of Missoula, appeared for sentencing. FERLIC was sentenced to a term of:
- Prison: 18 months
- Special Assessment: $400
- Restitution: $103,293
- Supervised Release: 3 years
FERLIC was sentenced in connection with her guilty plea to tax evasion.
In an Offer of Proof filed by the United States, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
FERLIC worked as the office manager at Jerome's Drilling, a water well drilling company in Missoula. Her duties included preparing all payroll documents, billing for work performed by the company, payment of all bills associated with the business, and other general office work.
During a routine check of business records by the Missoula Federal Credit Union upon FERLIC'S application for a loan, auditors discovered a large discrepancy between the salary FERLIC listed on her application and deposits to her bank accounts. Further investigation by the FBI revealed that FERLIC had embezzled substantial sums of money from Jerome's Drilling.
FERLIC accomplished this embezzlement by changing the payee on expenses entered into Jerome's Drilling's accounting system to show the names of vendors that the company dealt with on a regular basis. FERLIC then wrote checks to herself and would code the transactions to make it look as if the check was written to a vendor. FERLIC had no authority to sign checks out of the business account and business checks required two signatures. To overcome this obstacle to her crime, FERLIC obtained pre-signed checks and wrote the checks to herself and to personal creditors to pay off personal debt.
When interviewed by law enforcement, FERLIC admitted embezzling money from Jerome's Drilling but estimated it could be no more than $150,000. In fact, the criminal investigation revealed FERLIC embezzled approximately $380,000 during the 2000-2004 time period.
FERLIC prepared her own federal tax returns. In preparing her tax returns for tax years 2000-2004, FERLIC failed to include the additional income she embezzled from Jerome's Drilling on any of the returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service.
Because there is no parole in the federal system, the "truth in sentencing" guidelines mandate that FERLIC will likely serve all of the time imposed by the court. In the federal system, FERLIC does have the opportunity to earn a sentence reduction for "good behavior." However, this reduction will not exceed 15% of the overall sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kris A. McLean prosecuted the case for the United States.
The investigation was conducted by the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service.
