Former Burlington Loan Officer Pleads Guilty to Bankruptcy Fraud

A former loan officer at a Dubuque credit union, who filed a bankruptcy case after perpetrating a vehicle lien stripping scheme against her employer, pled guilty on May 27, 2026, in federal court in Cedar Rapids. Kylie Jo Bench, formerly known as Kylie Jo Parrish, age 27, from Burlington, Iowa, was convicted of one count of bankruptcy fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

In a plea agreement, Bench admitted that a Dubuque credit union hired her as a loan officer at a branch in Burlington in 2022. When the credit union hired Bench, she had outstanding loans on two late-model vehicles, a Ford and a Dodge, at other financial institutions. Bench owed over $100,000 on the vehicles. After the credit union hired Bench, Bench and another individual jointly refinanced those loans with her new employer.

In August 2022, without the credit union's knowledge, Bench sold the two vehicles at a car dealership in Cedar Rapids. Bench did not disclose or record the credit union's security interests in the vehicles at any time. Instead, Bench provided the car dealership with a letter, purportedly signed by one of the credit union's executives on fake letterhead, which falsely stated that the loans were "paid off" and had "a zero balance." In truth, neither Bench nor the other individual had repaid the loans on the two vehicles they had recently refinanced.

In March 2023, Bench caused an attorney file a document in a voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy case in which she falsely denied under oath transferring any property on account of a debt that benefitted an insider, when in truth Bench had sold the Ford and the Dodge and those sales benefitted the other individual who owed money on the vehicle loans.

Bench is the fourth person convicted of bankruptcy fraud crimes in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa this year.

Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Bench remains free on bond previously set. Bench faces a mandatory minimum two-year prison term and a possible maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, and three years of supervised release following any imprisonment.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy L. Vavricek and was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division. The core mission of the Fraud Division is to zealously investigate and prosecute those who steal or fraudulently misuse taxpayer dollars. Department of Justice efforts to combat fraud support President Trump's Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.plLinks to other government and non-government sites will typically appear with the "external link" icon to indicate that you are leaving the Department of Justice website when you click the link..

The case file number is 25-CR-95.

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