Ex-Minn. bank employee sentenced for embezzling

Published 11:17 am Thursday, January 17, 2013

MINNEAPOLIS — A former bank employee will have to pay $1 million restitution for embezzling from customers of the Marshall bank where she worked.

Forty-eight-year-old Barbara Kaye Rechtzigel of Belview also was sentenced Wednesday in federal court to two years in prison.

Rechtzigel pleaded guilty in August to one count of embezzlement by a bank officer. She worked as senior operations manager at Minnwest Bank until she was fired in June.

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In a plea agreement, she admitted embezzling money by creating false paperwork to make customers believe their CDs were renewed and earning interest, when she was actually taking the money.

The bank reimbursed customers more than $1 million.