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Ryan Koble sentenced to six months for embezzling nearly $100,000 from Wallwork Truck Center

Ryan Michael Koble, 40, Minot, was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison, with all suspended except six months, and three years of supervised probation for embezzling nearly $100,000 last year from his employer, Wallwork Truck Center. Koble had been the branch manager at the business.

Court records show that Koble pleaded guilty to Class A felony theft of property.

Judge Doug Mattson also ordered Koble to pay $1,025 in court costs. Koble had already paid full restitution of $98,646.26, according to court records. Koble will be permitted work release while he is in serving his sentence at the Ward County Jail. He is now working for another business in the area.

According to court records, Koble made multiple unauthorized refund transactions between September 2018 and September 2019. The thefts were discovered after Wallwork Truck Center conducted an internal investigation and reported them to the Ward County Sheriff’s Department.

Koble was questioned on Sept. 18. He told authorities he had found a loophole in the system in July 2018 and fabricated invoices and refunds so the transactions would not show up on the business’s inventory report. He refunded some of the money into his own bank account at Gate City Bank, but his wife asked him where the money came from. Koble told her it had been credited to his account by accident and then withdrew the money to pay it back to Wallwork. However, he did not pay Wallwork back. Instead, he opened another account at First International Bank and Trust and put the stolen money there. Once he got away with it the first time, he kept withdrawing money a couple of times a month until he got caught. Koble used the stolen funds to put a down payment on a new pickup and purchased a boat, golf clubs and two grills.

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