Second bank employee pleads guilty to embezzling in Kansas

A second former bank employee has pleaded guilty to embezzling money from a Ulysses bank, less than a week after another former employee of the bank pleaded guilty in the same case, according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom.
Ashley Cravens, 29, Ulysses, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of theft from a bank and admitted in her plea that she and other former bank employees embezzled from the bank and staged a robbery.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, from 2008 to July 24, 2010, while Cravens worked at Western State Bank in Ulysses, she and two co-defendants embezzled approximately $84,200 from the bank. Co-defendant Amber Gutierrez, 32, Ulysses, pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of theft from the bank. Hattie Wiginton, 33, Ulysses, is also a co-defendant in the case.
With her plea, Cravens also admitted that on July 24, 2010, she aided and abetted a staged bank robbery, and subsequent to the staged bank robbery, she took part in the embezzlement of another $24,450 from the bank.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Gutierrez and Linda Wise, 60, Ulysses, are co-defendants in the subsequent embezzlement case.
Wiginton is accused of making false statements to the FBI, including false claims that she did not know who robbed the bank, that there were two robbers and that one of the robbers was a male with an Hispanic accent.
All four defendants are accused of creating falsified cash deposit slips and depositing funds into their own accounts.
Cravens is set for sentencing Feb. 7, and Gutierrez is set for sentencing Feb. 4.
Wiginton was charged with two counts of embezzlement by a bank employee, one count of bank robbery and one count of making a false statement to the FBI. She is set for jury trial Dec. 17.
Wise was charged with one count of embezzlement by a bank employee and is set for jury trial Dec. 17.