Four Former Employees Charged with Staging Bank Robbery

Four western Kansas women have been indicted, accused of embezzling from the bank where they worked and staging a robbery to cover the thefts.

On Thursday, an indictment was unsealed charging four former employees of Western State Bank in Ulysses with the following crimes:

-32-year-old Amber Gutierrez of Ulysses is charged with two counts of embezzlement by a bank employee and one count of bank robbery.

-32-year-old Hattie Wiginton of Ulysses is charged with two counts of embezzlement by a bank employee, one count of bank robbery and one count of making a false statement to the FBI.

-28-year-old Ashley Cravens of Ulysses is charged with two counts of embezzlement by a bank employee and one count of bank robbery.

-59-year-old Linda Wise of Ulysses is charged with one count of embezzlement by a bank employee.

The indictment alleges that from 2008 until July of 2010, Gutierrez Wiginton and Cravens embezzled more than $84,000 from the bank. The three then allegedly staged a robbery of the bank, taking an undetermined amount of cash. Wiginton reportedly told the FBI that that two men robbed the bank, and one spoke with a Hispanic accent.

The indictment continues that Gutierrez, Cravens and Wise embezzled an additional $24,000 from the bank from late 2010 until March of this year. They allegedly created falsified cash deposit slips and deposited funds into their own accounts.

If convicted, they face up to 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $1,000 on each count of theft, 25 years and a fine up to $250,000 on the bank robbery charge and up to 5 years and a fine up to $250,000 for making a false statement to the FBI.