She stole $150K, got caught after Kansas bank customer died. She got 60 days in prison

A Kansas bank employee who stole $150,000 from a customer and was caught after the customer died has been sentenced to 60 days in federal prison.

Phyllis Rae Lanning, 61, of Coffeyville, was sentenced last week to 60 days in federal prison and three years of supervised release. Lanning pleaded guilty in July to one count of mail fraud in connection to the theft of $150,000 from a customer’s bank account at Condon State Bank in Coffeyville.

She was ordered to pay a $100 assessment and $150,000 in restitution, court documents state. She was not ordered to pay interest on the restitution because the court determined Lanning does not have the ability to pay interest. One of the conditions of her supervision forbids her from working or volunteering in a position where she would have authority over finances.

Lanning admitted in her plea agreement that she stole $150,000 from a customer’s bank account in 2003 and 2004. To conceal the theft, she set up a U.S. Postal Service box in Bartlesville, Okla., under both her name and the customer’s name. She mailed counterfeit bank statements to the customer and sent the legitimate statements to the post office box in Bartlesville.

Lanning was a customer service representative at the bank, according to a LinkedIn account.

The customer, identified in court documents as T.G., died in May 2009. The money in the account was passed to J.R. and M.R., who were members of T.G.’s family, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a release.

Lanning continued to send the real bank statements to the post office box while mailing fake statements to J.R. and M.R., the plea agreement states. It wasn’t until eight years later, in May 2017, that J.R. and M.R. discovered a $240,000 discrepancy between the bank statements and the amount of money in the account.

The account was missing only $150,000, court documents state. The rest of the discrepancy was due to a false interest rate reported by Lanning on the fake bank statements.

J.R. and M.R. then met Lanning at her home, where she told them she had embezzled money from the bank account, the plea agreement states. Lanning fully cooperated with a law enforcement investigation, prosecutors said.

Lanning was not in federal custody as of Tuesday, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate records.

This story was originally published October 16, 2018 at 4:32 PM.