Former Employee Pleads Guilty to $150,000 Theft from Eldon Drug Company

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A former employee pleaded guilty in federal court today to embezzling nearly $150,000 from Eldon Drug Company in Eldon, Mo.

Katherine Elizabeth Cebuhar, 41, of Olean, Mo., waived her right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr., to a federal information that charges her with four counts of wire fraud.

Cebuhar worked as the office manager for MLX-RX, LLC d/b/a Eldon Drug Company, a pharmacy in Eldon, from April 2014 until her termination on March 1, 2017. By pleading guilty today, Cebuhar admitted that she conducted four fraudulent embezzlement schemes while employed at Eldon Drug Company, resulting in a total loss to her employer of $148,782.

Cebuhar embezzled $125,444 of the cash receipts from Eldon Drug Company from September 2014 to June 2017. Cebuhar took cash from the company’s daily receipts before making the deposits into the company’s bank account. To conceal her fraud and embezzlement, Cebuhar modified and reduced QuickBooks entries to match the bank deposits.

In her second scheme to defraud Eldon Drug Company, Cebuhar falsely inflated her wages by awarding herself unauthorized hourly raises in January 2015 and January 2017. Through this fraud scheme, Cebuhar embezzled approximately $7,369.

In her third fraud scheme, Cebuhar misused two business credit cards by charging personal expenses to the cards beginning in 2016. Cebuhar then caused the payment of the company credit card bills without making any reimbursement for her use of the company’s cards for personal expenses, resulting in a total loss of approximately $6,646.

In her fourth fraud scheme, Cebuhar used the Eldon Drug Company’s bank account to electronically pay her personal credit card bill from January 2017 to June 2017. Through this fraud scheme, Cebuhar embezzled approximately $6,812 from Eldon Drug Company.

Under federal statutes, Cebuhar is subject to a sentence of up to 30 years in federal prison without parole on each of the four counts. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence E. Miller. It was investigated by the FBI and the Eldon, Mo., Police Department.