Liberty Couple Charged in $2.8 Million Embezzlement, Check Kiting Scheme to Fund Gambling, Lavish Spending

KANSAS CITY, MO—Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Liberty, Missouri husband and wife were charged in federal court today with a nearly $2.8 million embezzlement and check kiting scheme and with filing a false tax return.

Laura Dejong, 54, and her husband, Craig Dejong, 55, both of Liberty, waived their right to a grand jury in a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge John T. Maughmer and were charged in a two-count federal information. Laura Dejong is charged with one count of mail fraud, and both of the Dejongs are charged in one count of filing a false tax return.

Laura Dejong allegedly embezzled $2,679,227 from her employer, Kansas City Screw Products Inc., from January 2003 to November 2011. Kansas City Screw Products is a family owned and operated metal fabrication business in Kansas City. Laura Dejong, who was employed as a secretary and bookkeeper for approximately 23 years, allegedly forged checks drawn on the company’s bank accounts.

According to today’s information, Laura Dejong engaged in a check kiting scheme between the company’s two banks in order to falsely inflate the company’s bank account balances, thereby increasing the amount of money she could embezzle. Her check kite allegedly began in late June 2011. The total amount of checks written by Laura Dejong to cause the check kite increased from $44,000 in June 2011 to $847,000 in November 2011, the information says. The total loss from the check kite to Central Bank was $96,000.

The total combined loss for Kansas City Screw Products and Central Bank was $2,775,227.

According to court documents, significant gambling activity was identified for the Dejongs, well into the millions of dollars, from January 2002 to December 2011. The majority of the Dejongs’ gambling was at slot machines.

Records indicate that the Dejongs took at least eight cruises and spent more than $100,000 on payments for the cruises, vacations, and airfare between 2005 and 2011. During the time of the embezzlement scheme, according to court documents, the Dejongs used the stolen money to purchase a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, a 2009 Honda Accord, a 1997 Crownline boat (20-foot fiberglass runabout), a 1997 Prestige boat trailer, a 1985 Chevrolet RV/motor-home (now a Kansas City Chiefs party bus), a 2008 Jayco travel trailer, four Ameriprise Brokerage accounts, four Kansas Speedway season tickets (passholder seats, parking passes, and track passes), four Kansas City Chiefs Club Level season tickets and parking passes, membership to the Chiefs Wolfpack Club (an exclusive members-only facility), and their residence.

According to today’s information, the Dejongs filed joint tax returns for tax years 2005-2010 but did not declare any of the embezzled money as income. During this time, Laura Dejong’s gross annual salary at Kansas City Screw Products ranged from $22,752 to $33,333. Craig Dejong was unemployed for four years and listed no income for the two years in which he claimed to be employed as a computer programmer.

As a result of filing false tax returns in those six years, the information alleges, the Dejongs owe the Internal Revenue Service a total of approximately $482,711.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Pansing Brown. It was investigated by the FBI and IRS-Criminal Investigation.

This news release, as well as additional information about the office of the United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is available online at http://www.justice.gov/usao/mow/index.html.