An alleged conspiracy by four people – including a Lawton-area resident and a woman who pleaded guilty to a federal crime a decade ago – resulted in the embezzlement of more than $377,400 from an unidentified healthcare company in Hydro.
As a result, Misty Dawn Burton, 33, and Neil Collin Willmon, 26, were indicted in Oklahoma City’s federal district court April 16 on a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Willmon lives in Cache and Cyril, traffic tickets issued in Comanche, Grady, Jackson, Harmon, McClain and Oklahoma counties indicate. Burton’s address is not listed in court records.
Two other individuals also are implicated in the case:
• A female identified only as Conspirator 1, who was employed by the healthcare company as an accountant “responsible for bookkeeping for a nursing home business owned by” an unidentified company “that operated a nursing home in Hydro.” Conspirator 1 “prepared checks, paid invoices, and managed accounts payable and accounts receivable” for the company.
• Conspirator 2, identified in court records only as “a resident of theWestern District of Oklahoma.”
Conspirator 1’s supervisor was a person identified in court records as “S.N.,” who was “responsible for approving all checks required to pay approved invoices.” Conspirator 1 needed S.N.’s prior approval to sign or issue any checks from any of the company’s business accounts.
Conspirator 1 had access to the company’s accounting system, Quick-Books, “and had access to a signature stamp” for the company owner, who is identified in court documents as “K.A.” Conspirator 1 was allowed to use that signature stamp only with S.N.’s approval.
The federal grand jury alleges that from August 2022 through November 2023 Burton and Willmon, in league with the two other conspirators, committed wire fraud. They obtained funds from the healthcare company – without its knowledge or permission – by issuing and cashing unauthorized checks drawn on the company’s Hydro bank account.
Conspirator 1 “devised a scheme” whereby she issued checks that were drawn on the company’s bank account and that listed herself as the payee. She then deposited the checks into her personal accounts at Stride Bank and Bank 7 “and used the funds obtained from the checks for her own personal use.”
She stamped the checks using K.A.’s signature stamp without the company owner’s approval, and then deleted the checks from the company’s accounting system, federal investigators and prosecutors allege.
Subsequently Conspirator 1 expanded her scheme to include Burton, Willmon, and Conspirator 2 – none of whom “performed any work” for the company nor for any of its affiliated companies – the federal government alleges.
The three co-conspirators redeemed their checks at a check-cashing company and would give Conspirator 1 some of the proceeds from the forged instruments, prosecutors allege.
The indictment relates that Conspirator 1 issued 116 unauthorized checks to herself, “which together totaled $137,854.” Clearing the checks and transferring funds “by and between” the Bank of Hydro, Stride Bank, and Bank 7 constituted interstate wire transmissions, prosecutors allege.
She also is accused of issuing:
• 56 unapproved checks to Burton that totaled $107,167.
• 36 checks toWillmon that totaled $104,416.
• 15 checks to Conspirator 2 “which together totaled $28,005.”
Their validating and clearing those checks via the check-cashing company constituted interstate wire transmissions.
Burton pleaded guilty to a federal crime in 2014 Burton was 23 when she was indicted in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court in 2014 on one count of possession with intent to distribute oxycodone and two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense. She was indicted along with her father and two other accomplices.
Two months later Burton pleaded guilty to one of the firearm possession charges in exchange for dismissal of the two other counts. In her plea agreement she admitted that while at her residence in Cherokee County, she gave one of her accomplices “a quantity” of oxycodone, a powerful opioid pain reliever, in exchange for a .243-caliber rifle.
She was released on an unsecured bond while awaiting sentencing, but was rearrested for failure to appear for a required drug test.
Her attorney submitted a sentencing memorandum in which he informed the court that Burton had a history of drug abuse. She was injured “in an accident involving a horse when she was 16 years old” and was prescribed oxycodone for pain, “and she became addicted.”
Her attorney also described Burton as “a first-time offender … not likely to reoffend.”
She was sentenced to five years in federal prison and was ordered to participate in a treatment program for drug/alcohol dependency and in a mental health program.
Her father died before his trial, but her two other accomplices pleaded guilty to firearm charges and also were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.