GRAND RAPIDS, MI—United States Attorney Patrick A. Miles, Jr., announced today that Megan Kolberg, age 37, of Mason, Michigan, pled guilty in federal court to bank embezzlement. She faces up to 30 years’ imprisonment, supervised release of up to five years, and will be ordered to pay restitution to Mason State Bank.

According to the plea agreement, Kolberg admitted to embezzling more than $130,000 from Mason State Bank’s Cedar Street branch between December 2009 and May 21, 2013, where she worked as a teller. She regularly embezzled cash from the bank and concealed her embezzlement by making false entries in the bank’s books and records. On May 21, 2013, as bank officials and law enforcement officers were beginning to uncover her embezzlement, Kolberg reported that as she was checking the outside ATM prior to closing the bank for the day, an armed man emerged from some nearby bushes, stole approximately $120,000 from the ATM and her teller drawer, and destroyed the surveillance tape. At her plea hearing, Kolberg admitted that she staged the bank robbery in an effort to explain why the balances of the accounts that she controlled at the bank were greater than the actual cash on hand at the branch.

“Crimes of this nature are not just crimes against an institution, they cause financial losses to the public.” said David P. Gelios, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI, Detroit Division. “It was a strong collaboration between our Lansing office and the Mason Police Department that solved this case and, ultimately, that’s a win for the public.”

Kolberg will be sentenced in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan on February 29, 2016 at 2:00 p.m.

The investigation was conducted by the Lansing office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Mason Police Department. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald M. Stella.