On April 22, 2021, in the Western District of Missouri, Susannah Lesaisaea was sentenced for her role in a scheme involving the negotiation of stolen U.S. Treasury tax refund checks. Lesaisaea was initially charged in a 43-count indictment issued on May 2, 2018.

According to the court documents, between March 11, 2016 through May 9, 2016, Lesaisaea and her coconspirators executed a scheme to defraud various branches of a financial institution. The scheme began by unlawfully obtaining U.S. Treasury tax refund checks stolen from the U.S. Postal Service mail stream. Next, Lesaisaea and her coconspirators obtained fraudulent identification documents, opened fictitious bank accounts in the names of the victims, and then cashed the stolen U.S. Treasury tax refund checks at various banks in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. Lesaisaea and her coconspirators negotiated approximately 99 stolen U.S. Treasury tax refund checks, resulting in a financial loss of more than $447,000.

Lesaisaea was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for bank fraud and 24 months' imprisonment for aggravated identity theft to run consecutively for a total of 42 months. Lesaisaea was also ordered to pay $67,707 in restitution and a $200 assessment fee. Upon release from imprisonment, she will be on supervised release for three years.

Source:  The facts in this case narrative come from the following publicly available documents: W.D. Mo., Indict., filed May 2, 2018; and W.D. Mo., Judg., filed April 22, 2021.