Austin Nolan Dwight Rutherford, a former armored transport guard based in Juneau, pleaded guilty to charges of theft, embezzlement, and misapplication of funds by a person connected in a capacity with a bank and credit union.
The 29-year-old man stole a total of $579,400.00, which was entrusted to him by three banks and two federal credit unions in Juneau.
Rutherford’s caper started March of 2020 and continued until March of 2022, when he was an armed transport guard for Axiom Armored Transport. The company is responsible for the armed transportation of U.S. currency for ATMs of U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, Key Bank, NuVision Credit Union, and Alaska USA Federal Credit Union.
The court records indicate that Rutherford began his illicit activities in March of 2020, following his transfer to Axiom’s Juneau branch. Even after his termination in March of2022, Rutherford continued making unusual cash deposits into his bank accounts that surpassed legitimate income sources identified during the investigation.
The misappropriation was eventually discovered in May or 2022, following an internal audit conducted by Axiom, which uncovered that Rutherford had stolen a total of $579,400.00 in bank and credit union funds.
Rutherford is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 17. The severity of his crime could lead to a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, a fine of up to $1,000,000 and potentially life on supervised release. As part of his guilty plea, Rutherford has agreed to pay full restitution of the stolen amount.
All that and for what?
A little bit of money.
There’s more to life than a little bit of money.
Oh yaah.
Needs to find a way to weasel word his way into the 2nd tier of was is our justice system
The bigger crime is that the banks & credit unions didn’t realize what was going on from 2020 through 2022. A few hundred thousand here, a few hundred thousand there and eventually, even for a bank, You’re talking real money….
Marlin, you have expressed the obvious question. Inasmuch as the definitional function of any bank is to track and account for money, it seems incredible this alleged crime could occur incrementally over two years before being allowed to grow out of control.
Unfortunately their management probably won’t face any penalty.
Just curious, how much we could recover from investigating elected officials in Juneau?
Recover from the people that took covid relief money for their businesses
If he was a Democrat, he could do it openly, and want to be given”credit” as a legislator
He deserves jail time for the sheer stupidity of this. This kind of money is heavily tracked.
Except it took the banks two years to find out as reader Marvin savage pointed out. I left AlaskaUSA cause they got too community and social.
Masked, It may be heavily tracked but obviously not quickly tracked.
Conscience seared no doubt a long time ago and no longer available to function as a safeguard. Why God-given, well-trained (not seared non-functioning) consciences are highly valuable.
Im Sure He is somehow related to Hunter Biden. ANYTHING for a free buck!
So paltry, he needs to level up like Hillary or the Bidens.