Teri Anne Bell, a 58-year-old bookkeeper who worked for a gunmaker in northwest Montana, is about to start serving some hard time in federal prison after pleading guilty to stealing $159,000 from her former employer. If you are a regular visitor to this space, you probably know already where this post is heading.
Yes, she took some of the stolen loot and spent it in Las Vegas, that great, big bug light for folks with a few extra dollars to blow in ill-gotten gains.
That makes her a candidate for my long-running list, It Didn’t Stay Here. The criterion is simple: people who got in trouble elsewhere for something that happened in Las Vegas (in this case the local spending of ill-gotten loot). It’s a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal of that famous former Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority marketing slogan, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.”
You can see the list nearby. Bell is not the first on the roster who stole money and hot-footed it to Sin City. Since becoming New To Las Vegas, I have been amazed at how often this town is the lure for people with such proclivities.
This account is based on a variety of sources. They mainly include official records of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, press releases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office there and Bell’s own signed plea agreement. I also reviewed various news accounts, including one in the quaintly named, Pulitzer Prize-winning weekly Hungry Horse News of Columbia Falls, Mont., whose Facebook page calls it the “photo newspaper of Glacier Park.”
Earlier this year, in a plea-bargain Bell, who lives in Columbia Falls, admitted guilt to a single count of wire fraud. She acknowledged taking $159,000 from 2018 to 2021 from her employer, Falkor SID Inc., a Mom-and-Pop-owned manufacturing firm in nearby Kalispell that makes and distributes rifles and custom gun parts. She did this by altering descriptions in the accounting system to make it appear money was being spent on legitimate business expenses.
In fact, the funds went to pay down her own credit card balances. These included charges from multiple Las Vegas hotels, although their identities and amounts were not detailed in records. Other funds went for such additional personal expenses as clothing, electronic equipment, streaming services, pet supplies, groceries and medical debts.
Bell had been a Falkor employee for two years when she started her scheme. She got caught in 2021 and was fired. Yet, according to filings, Bell initially filed a grievance and demanded to be reinstated, forcing Falkor’s owners to spend another $15,000 in legal fees.
She faced a maximum 20-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors in a sentencing memorandum suggested 10 to 16 months. But by the time of sentencing earlier this month, Bell had made substantial restitution. This may be one reason why U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy went a tad easier: five months in prison, followed by six months of home confinement and three years of supervised release, along with 175 hours of community service, a $20,000 fine and a total of $174,500 in restitution to Falkor.
According to the federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, Bell hasn’t yet started her sentence. So I imagine it will be awhile before she visits Las Vegas again, if ever.