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Feds claim government worker and exotic dancer bilked Defense Department

chitownlawyer

Florida

From today's St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch.

(I'm assuming the stripper had her own credit card processing company so she could take credit cards for OTC...but maybe this is not a correct conclusion.)

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Feds claim government worker and exotic dancer bilked Defense Department
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/28/2008

St. Louis — It's not your normal love story, but it goes like this, federal prosecutors say:

Man meets exotic dancer. Dancer meets man's government-issued credit card. More than $56,000 in charges later, both meet federal agents Friday and end up in handcuffs.

The man, a suspended Defense Department civilian employee named Steven C. Brown, 49, of Godfrey, and the dancer, Teressa V. Shrum, 33, of Hannibal, Mo., were indicted Thursday on 20 felony counts of theft of public money, the U.S. attorney's office announced.

"At this time, when the men and women of the armed forces are putting their lives at risk around the world in defense of this country, it is unconscionable that anyone would steal from the Defense Department," U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said in a prepared statement.

The indictment in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, unsealed Friday, lays out the relationship this way:

Brown and Shrum met in the summer of 2004 while she was working as an exotic dancer at a Metro East club, and "a personal relationship developed" that lasted into 2006. Brown helped Shrum with expenses, including a car loan.

Brown had worked as a civilian employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, now in Arnold, since 1984.

Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, it provides a variety of maps, aerial photos and other data to "military, civilian and international needs" and most recently supplied data to aid in the flood relief efforts in the Midwest.

Part of Brown's job involved buying office supplies and computer equipment, and he had the use of a government-issued credit card.

Shrum already had a "credit card merchant processing" company called Infiniti Business Solutions. She registered the company in December of 2005 under the name Teressa Carlton, but Missouri dissolved it in July of 2006 for her failure to file an annual report. She then registered the name in February of 2007.

That same month, Brown and Shrum met for dinner and hatched a scheme to use false invoices and Brown's credit card to bill the government for computer equipment and supplies that were never delivered, the indictment says.

They kept the transactions below $3,001, so Brown's supervisor would not have to approve it, and they met in restaurants and parking lots in St. Louis County and elsewhere to use a portable terminal to run transactions through the card, the charges say.

The indictment lists 20 credit transactions that totalled just over $56,600.

Brown has been suspended from the agency since July 27, 2007, a spokesman said Friday.

Brown could not be reached for comment. A person who answered a phone number listed for Shrum declined to comment.

In court Friday afternoon, Shrum told U.S. Magistrate Judge Audrey Fleissig that she owns her own company that works with credit cards and other business applications.

Both were released on their own recognizance.