Mission Woman Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud

United States Attorney Brendan V. Johnson announced that Clarice Brave, age 51, of Mission, South Dakota, appeared before U.S. District Judge Roberto A. Lange on September 9, 2013, and pled guilty to the Indictment that charged her with wire fraud.

The maximum penalty upon conviction is 20 years in custody and/or a $250,000 fine, three years of supervised release, and a $100 assessment to the Federal Crime Victims Fund.

The charge stems from the timeframe between August 1, 2012 and September 24, 2012, when Brave devised a rolling deposit scheme to obtain money from the Family Dollar store in Mission. Brave took cash out of store deposit bags for personal use and delayed taking deposits to the bank until she had enough cash from successive days to replace the money she previously took. When Family Dollar management began to suspect Brave was rolling deposits, Brave was required to fax deposit tickets, the deposit log, and the store’s daily cash receipt totals to the Family Dollar’s Loss Prevention Director in Shawnee, Kansas, on a daily basis. On September 21, 2012, Brave was able to get a teller to issue five deposit tickets from the bank without depositing any cash into Family Dollar’s bank account. She then faxed the fraudulently obtained deposit tickets from Mission to Shawnee, Kansas, in an attempt to conceal the rolling deposit scheme.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Law Enforcement Services. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie H. Ruettgers.

A presentence investigation was ordered, and a sentencing date was set for November 25, 2013.

Brave was released on conditions pending sentencing.