Woman fled to Scotland after embezzling $165K from STL company: DOJ

ST. LOUIS – A U.S. District judge sentenced a woman to prison on Thursday for stealing over $165,000 from her employer at a St. Louis-area comic book publishing company.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Missouri, Sarah Lynn Tweedie, 49, used a company credit card to make personal purchases and then fled to Scotland to be with her long-distance fiancée.

Prosecutors said she pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft after using the company card and a former employee’s card without their knowledge. Tweedie admitted that while working for the comic book company she planned to steal from her employer.

She used the two cards to make $138,137 in purchases, including a Scottish kilt and a premium seat upgrade on her flight from Chicago to Glasgow, Scotland. She additionally used the company account to purchase $6,400 in Amazon gift cards, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said she even increased her annual salary from $80,000 to $110,000 and prompted $16,086 in expense reimbursement, to which she was not entitled. In total, she stole $165,239 from the publishing company.

Tweedie began a long-distance relationship in 2015 with a man who lived in Scotland, and they got engaged in March 2017, a month before she started working at the publishing company, according to court documents.

In December 2017, she told her employer that her fiancée was injured in a car accident and she left to be with him. Prosecutors said in reality, she had received a visa to live in Scotland and was not planning to return.

Tweedie was arrested on July 9, 2019 by Scottish authorities. She fought deportation until her final appeal was denied in March 2024.

Tweedie pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. She was sentenced to 45 months in prison.

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