Missouri Woman Sentenced to Prison for $3.8 Million International Embezzlement

ST. LOUIS - U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Monday sentenced a woman to 90 months in prison for embezzling $3.8 million from her employer with the help of co-conspirators in China.

Judge Clark also ordered Bridget Thebeau, now 46, of St. Charles County, to repay the money. Her lawyers brought checks totaling $104,500 to court.

As part of her scheme, Thebeau struck a deal with some of her employer's suppliers in China to inflate purchase orders in exchange for kickbacks. She altered some purchase orders and issued others that were fictitious. Between 2015 and 2023, she altered 152 purchase orders and issued 82 completely fictitious purchase orders, for a total of $3.82 million. In return, her co-conspirators wired more than half of that money to her personal bank account. When asked at sentencing to explain what she did with money, Thebeau provided what Judge Clark deemed to be incomplete and untruthful answers.

It was a crime motivated purely by greed, Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf wrote in a sentencing memo. Thebeau did not have a drug problem, financial issues or mental health problems that might have motivated her to steal from her employer. Judge Clark characterized Thebeau's embezzlement scheme as one of the worst he's seen during his time on the bench.

Thebeau tried to hide her crime with fraudulent shipping labels and fraudulent bills of lading issued by the China-based suppliers, fraudulent invoices that she created and claimed she had issued to the company's customers and false information she supplied to the company's owner and accountants. When her embezzlement was discovered, she deleted records from the company's server, submerged her laptop in a sink full of water, tried to destroy evidence on her cell phone and deleted information that was stored in the cloud, according to testimony in Monday's hearing.

The owner of Thebeau's former company is no longer able to retire and has been forced to sell assets to try and keep the company afloat, the sentencing memo says.

Thebeau pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in May of 2025 to five counts of wire fraud

The U.S. Secret Service and the Chesterfield Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Ladendorf prosecuted the case.