Welch pleads guilty to wire fraud
COEUR d’ALENE — An Osburn woman who was accused of stealing millions of dollars from a Rathdrum construction company pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon in federal court to one of the numerous charges that were leveled against her.
After initially entering a not guilty plea back in March 2020, Trina M. Welch agreed to a plea agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office in which she confessed to one count of wire fraud.
Following the change of plea hearing held via Zoom call, Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci Whelan told the Hagadone News Network that the United States was glad to have Ms. Welch accept responsibility for her actions.
“We would like to commend the work of the Rathdrum Police Department as well, who worked with the FBI in bringing the case to a resolution.”
Originally planned to be held in person at the Federal Courthouse in Coeur d’Alene, a remote format had to be utilized when presiding Judge David C. Nye was not able to secure a flight from southern Idaho due to weather conditions.
Hired in 2012 as the Chief Accountant for Kasco of Idaho, LLC and Kasco Communications in Rathdrum, Welch was accused of stealing approximately $3.6 million from the company over the course of six years. Welch acquired this money by writing 341 fraudulent company checks to herself and then depositing them into several different bank accounts of her own.
While only admitting to Count Six of the original 341 total counts for each check she wrote, which details a check in the amount of $48,889.66, the court confirmed with Welch that the judge would consider relevant conduct when it comes to sentencing. This means that even counts that were dismissed or were not charged can be considered when calculating the sentence.
The crime of wire fraud, as charged in Count Six of the indictment, is punishable by a term of imprisonment of up 20 years, a term of supervised release up to three years, and a maximum fine of $250,00 plus a special assessment of $100. This does not include any restitution that must be paid back to Kasco owner, Keith Sims, or forfeiture of properties to the federal government that Welch purchased with the ill gotten gains. The exact amount of restitution will be determined at a separate hearing which is expected to be held later this year.
Sims said in a previous interview that serious money problems began to arise at his company roughly a year after Welch was hired.
“It kind of started in about 2014 when we started having a money crunch at Kasco,” Sims said. “We tried figuring it out, tightening our belts and Trina always said ‘our overhead is too high’ or ‘this is too high,’ and I drank the Kool-Aid because I trusted her explicitly.”
According to financial documents, Welch started small and transferred approximately $43,000 from Kasco in 2013. A year later, she transferred $77,000 from Kasco Communications. In 2015, the amount was more than $565,000 again from Kasco. In 2016, it was more than $1 million. 2017’s amount was nearly $1 million, 2018 was roughly $575,000 and 2019 was $345,000.
“She was my most trusted person at Kasco, hands down,” Sims said, “because she was the person that took care of my money.”
Welch’s sentencing, while currently scheduled for April 13 will most likely be pushed back to later in the year as well after both the prosecution and defense file a joint motion for more time to prepare.