Shelby County man accused of embezzling $3.5 million in Monroe County arrested

MONROE COUNTY, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Hunnewell, Missouri, man who was accused of embezzling $3.5 million in Monroe County has been arrested.

Ryan Edlin, 41, was charged on April 15 with money laundering, five counts of stealing more than $25,000, forgery and deceptive business practices, a misdemeanor. He is being held at the Randolph County Jail without bond. An arraignment is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday at the Monroe County Courthouse.

Court records say Edlin was arrested on Tuesday by the Brown County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois. He was booked into the Randolph County Jail on Friday afternoon.

A heavily redacted probable cause statement says Edlin embezzled about $3.5 million while he was an “in his role in administration of” a “facility” in Monroe County. Court documents say Edlin was employed at the facility from March 2019-October 2023.

Court documents say there were hundreds of checks written to a redacted name during that four-year period “with amounts in the hundreds to a few thousand dollars and gradually increasing to weekly five-figure checks totaling more than $3.5 million.”

Data was allegedly entered into a computer system under Edlin’s login credentials that initiated invoices for payments for “hogs that were not sold,” court documents say. The probable cause statement then goes on to say “in fact the hogs did not exist at all.”

Those entries were created in order to generate checks and were deposited with Edlin’s signature, court documents say.  The signature allegedly matched signature cards that were acquired from banks and other financial documents after a search warrant was executed on March 11, the statement says.

The statement says many of the deposits were made with smartphones and were regularly transferred through multiple accounts.