A woman from St. Charles County was sentenced on April 8 to 90 months in prison for embezzling $3.8 million from her employer, with the help of co-conspirators in China, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The case highlights a significant financial crime that impacted both a local business and its owner, who now faces serious financial consequences as a result of the theft.
U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark ordered Bridget Thebeau, age 46, to repay the stolen money after she pleaded guilty in May 2025 to five counts of wire fraud. Her attorneys brought checks totaling $104,500 to court at sentencing.
According to information presented during Monday’s hearing, Thebeau worked with suppliers in China between 2015 and 2023 by inflating purchase orders and creating fictitious ones in exchange for kickbacks. She altered or fabricated over two hundred purchase orders amounting to $3.82 million; more than half of those funds were wired directly into her personal bank account by co-conspirators overseas.
Judge Clark described Thebeau’s actions as among “the worst he’s seen during his time on the bench.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf said in a sentencing memo that “it was a crime motivated purely by greed,” noting there were no underlying drug or mental health issues behind her actions.
To conceal her scheme, Thebeau used fraudulent shipping labels and bills of lading from China-based suppliers, created fake invoices she claimed had been sent to customers, and supplied false information to company leadership and accountants. After discovery of her crimes, she attempted further cover-up by deleting records from company servers, submerging her laptop in water, destroying evidence on her cell phone, and erasing cloud-stored data.
The impact on Thebeau’s former employer has been severe; according to court documents cited at sentencing, the company owner is no longer able to retire and has had to sell assets just “to try and keep the company afloat.”
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service along with Chesterfield Police Department.
