Teel pleads guilty to embezzlement

Havre woman Peggy Teel admitted Monday afternoon to embezzling more than $10,000 during the years she worked as a teller at Bear Paw Credit Union.

District Judge Daniel Boucher accepted Teel's guilty plea to felony theft by embezzlement, a common scheme and scheduled her sentencing date for Oct. 17 at 2 p.m.

Boucher asked Teel if it was her intent to deprive the owner, the credit union, of the  property.

Teel answered yes.

Although the original charging document said the investigation went as far back as 2003, the time frame Teel pleaded guilty to Monday was from 2007 to 2015.

The investigation into Teel's actions began Feb. 3, after Bear Paw Executive Vice President Gerry Veis reported to police that he suspected someone was stealing money from the credit union.

Veis told officers $63,080 had gone missing from ATMs from 2007 to 2015. He said  $45,336 had gone missing from the cash drawers from 2003 to 2015 and $10,784 from the lobby coin vault, $6,551 from the cash machine and another $3,658 from the vault from 2004 to 2015. The total of all the missing money was $129,409.

When interviewed by officers, Teel first denied having anything to do with the theft. But on the day of the second interview, Feb. 5, she came back to the police department later in the day and said she did steal money from Bear Paw Credit Union.

"Teel stated she needed to come clean and she could not live with herself if she didn't. She stated she is not a bad, horrible person," the charging document said.

Teel told officers she didn't know when she began taking money, but she did think it started after someone left their teller drawer unlocked in the teller cart.

"Teel stated that it was just an opportunity and she took the money," documents say.

Teel admitted to taking money from some tellers' drawers but not all. Teel said she took money from ATM canisters but not every time they were filled. She said the most she took from an ATM canister at a time was "a couple hundred."

When asked what she did with the money, Teel told officers she bought things for her children and grandchildren.

The maximum penalty for Teel's offense is 10 years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. Teel was ordered to be booked at the Hill County Detention Center.