A Tower woman has been sentenced to 28 months in prison for embezzling over $300,000 from clients. Jeana Lautigar, also known as Jeana Lautigar-McGowan, owned and operated an accounting and payroll service based in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick announced that Lautigar-McGowan must also pay nearly $430,000 in restitution to former clients and the IRS.
Court documents reveal that between 2016 and 2020, Lautigar-McGowan embezzled funds by transferring money from client accounts into her own account under the guise of payroll transactions. She used these funds for personal expenses or to repay previous embezzlements. In total, she took $344,813 over five years.
Lautigar-McGowan attempted to conceal her actions on February 6, 2020, by moving embezzled money into another client's account. Additionally, she filed false income tax returns omitting the stolen income, resulting in an $84,746 tax loss to the United States.
On September 27, 2024, she pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a monetary transaction with criminally derived property and one count of filing a false income tax return in U.S. District Court. Judge Donovan W. Frank handed down her sentence last week.
The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation unit and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert Lewis and Esther Soria.