Jones Woman Charged With Embezzling $1M In Mail Fraud Scheme

A federal grand jury indicted and charged a Jones woman with bank fraud, mail fraud, forged securities and tax fraud. These charges are in connection with embezzling nearly $1 million from a metro company. United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, Sanford C. Coats announced Julie Ann Smith (aka Julie A. Judkins and Julie A. Judkins Smith) said the federal grand jury returned the indictment against Smith on Sept. 2.

The 36-count superseding indictment alleged that Smith worked from 2000 until around late June 2012 at Power Equipment & Engineering, Inc. (PE&E) in Oklahoma City. At PE&E, Smith was the accounts-payable clerk and office manager where she prepared checks and invoices for the company. 

Smith allegedly forged approximately 192 PE&E checks from June of 2002 through June of 2012 by using the company owner's signature stamp without the company's permission or knowledge. She also allegedly disguised the forged checks through false entries on PE&E's ledger, wrote many of the forged checks to a fake company under her control and directed other forged checks to credit card companies, financial institutions and vendors for her personal benefit.

In the indictment, Smith is charged with mail fraud for sending the forged checks to pay off personal credit card and aggravated identity theft for fraudulently using the company owner's signature of forged checks, among other charges.