GRANGEVILLE, ID – A preliminary hearing has been set for March 2nd for a former Grangeville woman accused of embezzling more than $240,000 from her employer between 2016 and 2022. Rebecca J. Warden, age 44, was arrested in Ellensburg, Washington, after a warrant was issued on January 13th for grand theft by an Idaho County District Court judge.
According to a Probable Cause Affidavit, the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office was contacted in early December by the owner of Stuivenga Vessey Drilling and Pumps. He reportedly told deputies that he had noticed his business accounts “didn’t have the amount of money he thought should be in there,” court records say.
On November 27th, the owner told Warden he was going to hire an accountant because “he didn‘t understand where his money was going. According to [the owner], Rebecca started crying and admitted she was taking money from the business accounts and using it for her personal use. Rebecca told [him] she would pay him back and asked him not to call the police, as it would ruin her,” the document says.
Warden was fired from the company, where she had been working since before the owner had purchased it in 2015.
The owner then began going through financial statements.
“[He] found that between 2016 and 2022, Rebecca paid $43,383.60 directly to her home from his business account, which he did not authorize. [He] also found that between 2018 and 2022, Rebecca paid $30,905.00 to credit card that was in the name of her father…from [his] business account, which he did not authorize. [He] found [a] credit card that was in his name that he didn’t know existed. According to [him], all the charges on the credit card belonged to Rebecca and he didn’t authorize any of the charges. [He] provided the credit card statement for an American Express card ending in‘ which was in his name. The statement was for activity from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022. There were total of 466 transactions on the card totaling just over $60,000.00,” according to an affidavit.
