Embezzler gets deferred sentence

A 44-year-old former Columbia Falls woman was given a three-year deferred sentence after she paid back most of the $11,493 she was accused of embezzling.

Flathead County District Court Judge David Ortley sentenced Aimee Gress on March 6 based on a plea agreement reached in August 2013. She was also ordered to pay $1,060 in restitution for the remaining missing money, a $1,000 fine and $800 in public defender fees.

Sentencing was delayed for several months because Gress now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the single mother was unable to travel on winter roads.

According to court records, the owner of Glacier Marble and Granite, in Kalispell, contacted the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office in January 2013 and said his bookkeeper had embezzled $11,493 from his business account with Glacier Bank.

Two days later, the owner and another man conducted a voluntary recorded interview with Gress in which she allegedly confessed to taking the money. She gave the owner the $275 she had with her, resigned and signed a confession form.

Gress was interviewed by a sheriff’s detective and a Secret Service agent and allegedly confessed to writing 10 checks to herself between Nov. 1, 2012 and Jan. 15, 2013 totaling $11,493 and spending all but the $275 she had returned.