The former director of a domestic violence help center in Lusk, Wyoming, is facing a felony theft charge on claims she stole more than $65,000 from the nonprofit group while running it and used a secret debit card linked to its account.
The lone theft charge against Sabrina Kruse, 46, rose last week to the felony-level Niobrara County District Court. It says she stole money from the Helpmate Crisis Center and Crime Victim Assistance Program in Lusk, and it carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Kiel Holder started investigating the allegedly missing money in July 2024 and probed the issue for months, says an evidentiary affidavit he wrote.
Twice in that document, Holder highlighted instances of the charity group’s money reportedly being spent at places that sell alcohol or offer gambling.
Contacted Monday by phone, Kruse declined to comment.
Court Docs Allege …
Holder’s investigation started in July 2024, when he spoke with a new board member at Helpmate, Desirae Leleaux. She’d been asked to join the board of directors to help with the filing of grant paperwork and to review financial statements, says the affidavit.
Leleaux told the agent she’d reached out to the Wyoming Division of Victim Services and learned that Helpmate wasn’t being run effectively, and the agency was recommending a replacement of the executive director to ensure someone was filing grant reimbursement paperwork appropriately.
This was after Kruse had reportedly missed a March 2024 deadline to file grant reimbursement paperwork with the state agency, a move that tipped other organization leaders off to possible financial issues, the affidavit says.
Kruse “was removed” from her position that year, wrote Holder.
Leleaux in her review of the group’s financials found “thousands” of dollars siphoned from the Helpmate bank accounts via ATM withdrawals, the document adds.
The current board members told Leleaux when she asked that they had no knowledge of an ATM or debit card linked to that account, Holder continued; however, Leleaux found a debit card that had been associated with the account prior in Kruse’s desk at her office — after she was removed as executive director.
The Meeting
Holder and another DCI special agent met Leleaux in person in Lusk on July 18, 2024, and the woman explained that she saw many ATM cash withdrawals from the Helpmate account and was building a spreadsheet to document them all, the affidavit says.
“There were numerous withdrawals and debit card expenses that were taken from suspicious locations such as bars and gambling businesses,” Holder wrote.
When Leleaux gave the agents the spreadsheet, it spanned bank statements from July 2017 through March 2024.
Holder asked for banking records from that timeframe, and received them, he wrote.
He also met with Wyoming Victim Services Division Deputy Director Megan Hughes on July 25, 2024, and was allowed to download relevant financial information from the state agency, the affidavit says.
In a cross-review of the group’s bank records and the state’s reimbursement records, Holder “did not locate any circumstance” in which paperwork had been filed asking for a reimbursement of cash from the Helpmate account, he wrote.
Taken As Truthful
Holder interviewed Helpmate board member and prior secretary treasurer Megan Mathews by phone on Nov. 12, 2024, since he’d noted hers as a second signature on many Helpmate-issued checks and the second signer on a line of credit opened through BMO banking under the Helpmate account.
Mathews told the agent she’d spoken to Kruse about getting a debit card to pay several of the group’s bills instead of sending checks through the mail, but Kruse always told Mathews there was no debit card associated with the bank account, the document relates.
When Kruse told the board she was waiting for checks to clear, Mathews raised the concept of getting a debit card once again, the latter recalled.
“Mathews was never made aware that a debit card existed for the account,” Holder related from that interview.
Deadline
In April 2024, state officials notified Mathews that Kruse hadn’t filed grant paperwork due the prior month, reportedly.
“This event caused the board to take a closer look at Kruse and how she was managing the LLC,” Holder wrote.
Mathews told the agent that the LLC would likely not be funded by grants for 2024, and she started looking into the records then to determine whether the organization could keep all its employees.
That drove her to the bank, where she gathered records and started noticing the ATM cash withdrawals from the account, says the document.
“At this time, Mathews learned there was a debit card associated with the account,” added Holder. “Mathews canceled the debit card that day.”
The Two Accounts
Holder on Nov. 14, 2024, interviewed board member Jackie Bredthauer, who said she was never given a chance to review the Helpmate LLC bank records, and that Kruse would give the board financial reports, which the board took on face value as truthful.
“Bredthauer stated she did not believe any of the board members were aware of the issuance of the debit card,” the affidavit says.
Operating on a signed search warrant, says the document, the agent started a “comprehensive review” of all the financials, including Kruse’s personal bank account, on Jan. 29.
He noticed “numerous ATM transactions” from the Helpmate LLC bank account totaling $61,472.74, between April 2021 and March 2024, he wrote.
He also noticed “suspicious point-of-sale purchases” where the debit card was used at specific vendors, in amounts totaling $3,579.17, he wrote.
Both the Helpmate account and Kruse’s own account plunged into the negative on “numerous occasions,” and sometimes Kruse’s account would show a deposit amount matching a Helpmate withdrawal amount in both quantity and timeframe, says the affidavit.
Both accounts showed activity at locations that offer gambling and the sale of alcohol, the agent added.
Holder wrote that he “believes Kruse took state and federal grant money from the Helpmate LLC bank account to spend for her own benefit … with no intention of returning that money.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
