Former Cedar Rapids accountant convicted of embezzlement sentenced to 2 years in federal prison

A former accountant with Primus Construction convicted of embezzling more than $350,000 was sentenced to over two years in federal prison Tuesday.

Teresa Meeks, 60, pleaded guilty in December of one count of wire fraud. She was originally indicted on seven counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.

A plea agreement shows she admitted to embezzling $350,000 from Primus Construction, 401 Eighth Ave. SE, and its other companies, PCI Steel and Primus Industrial. As the accountant, she had access to the company accounts and was authorized to write checks to cover business expenses. From September 2009 through Nov. 5, 2014 she wrote checks to herself or RJM, a business owned by Meeks and her husband, according to the indictment.

The indictment shows Meeks signed her name on the checks and also signed the checks using the signature of Bart Woods, an owner of Primus authorized to sign checks on the accounts, on Oct. 14 and Oct. 20, 2014. Meeks worked with the companies for 16 years, court documents show.

Woods reported the suspected theft to authorities in November 2014 after an employee with Hills Bank called him about suspicious checks being deposited into Meeks' account, court documents show. The checks from Primus were unusual because they were made payable to Meeks and signed and endorsed by her.

Woods started an internal audit and found Meeks had written 'hundreds” of checks from various business accounts to herself, court documents show. In reviewing the ledgers, Woods found that Meeks tried to cover up her theft by making those checks payable to various Primus vendors.

U.S. District Chief Judge Linda Reade also ordered Meeks to pay $379,981 in restitution and she will have to serve three years supervised release following her prison term.

Court documents filed last year showed Meeks repaid Woods $12,891 since the fraud was discovered.