Former Fayette bank employee pleads guilty to stealing $2.4 million from customers

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Higbee woman pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to stealin from Exchange Bank of Missouri customers in Fayette during a 15-year scheme, a press release from the Department of Justice.

Megan Lea Dougherty, 36, pleaded guilty to bank fraud. She stole $2,393,288 from customers’ accounts, the release says. She was ordered to forfeit the money along with her interest in nine parcels of real estate in Howard County, the release says.

The release says that Dougherty was an employee at the Fayette branch of Exchange Bank and admitted to embezzling money from Jan. 1, 2009-Oct. 17, 2023. She began working in the IT and customer service department in 2008, the release says.

“She detected a lack of internal controls and began removing small amounts of money from customer accounts into her own savings account and then to her checking account. Eventually, she also transferred stolen funds into the checking accounts of family members. Dougherty then switched to taking from customer certificate of deposit accounts,” according to the release. “Dougherty falsified the description of these transfers in the bank’s computer systems to conceal her theft. She also rotated which accounts she took funds from so as to avoid detection, and would steal from one account to reimburse another, again to avoid detection.”

The federal government sued in late May to seize a piece of land owned by Megan, Harry Marshall, Harry A. and Brenda J. Dougherty. Federal authorities say the Doughertys used money Megan Dougherty embezzled from her employer, the Exchange Bank of Missouri, before the scheme was discovered last October and she was fired.

U.S. District Judge Brian C. Wimes last week approved the government's request to put the case on hold pending a criminal investigation into the alleged embezzlement.