Update, March 13, 2023: Kevin Bray showed up to court with counsel for sentencing on March 13, 2023.
The 42-year-old pleaded nolo-contendere to one count of criminal insurance fraud.
According to court documents from the Office of the Montana State Auditor, Bray was sentenced to the Montana Department of Corrections for 5 years with 5 years suspended.
He also has to pay $5,000 to a community food bank.
Update, January 3, 2022: Kevin Bray had pleaded guilty to to one count of theft (common scheme).
According to Cascade County Attorney, Joshua Racki, Bray will have a sentencing hearing but the date has not been set yet.
GREAT FALLS- A man is charged after court documents say he embezzled money from the Alumni Club in Great Falls and “manipulated” a man to get the money to pay it back.
Court documents say on December 26, 2019, two men at the police department were brought into an interview room after reporting Kevin Bray for a “possible wrongdoing.”
One of the men, who court documents say is one owner of the Alumni Club, said that Bray was hired to manage the bar.
The owner explained that he and the other owners discovered Bray may have been embezzling money from the business for two years, stating that Bray stole about $36,000.
According to court documents, the owner said Bray admitted that he was embezzling, and agreed to pay him back in return for the other owners not reporting it to law enforcement.
From December 16 to December 19, Bray deposited about $31,000 into the Alumni Club bank account, court documents saying that during this time is when Bray manipulated another man into giving him $25,000.
The other man told the officer Bray manipulated him into giving him $25,000 by telling him they were going to become majority owners of the Alumni Club.
Bray explained to the man that he has a 60% ownership stake in the company and needed $50,000 to buy out the other owner.
Court documents say the owner told the officer that Bray has about a 5.9% ownership stake in the company and that there are four majority owners including him that make up the remaining 94.1%.
After giving Bray the money, the man became suspicious of where the money went and went to the Alumni Club, where he talked to one owner who told him that Bray is not an owner, and had been embezzling from the company and has been terminated.
The man said he then confronted Bray about him being terminated and not being an owner, saying Bray admitted that he had to pay back the Alumni Club and that he would be paid back.
On December 27, a search warrant was obtained to record a phone call between Bray and the man to gather information on the reported embezzlement and the $25,000 that Bray took from him.
During the phone call, court documents say Bray explained how he planned on paying back the $25,000 the man gave him and that he plans to have it all paid back by March of 2020.
The man asked Bray on the phone what he did with the money, Bray admitting he gave it to the Alumni Club but would not say why.
Bray said he didn’t steal money from the Alumni Club, but still gave them the $25,000 to keep them from going to law enforcement.
Bray went on to say he didn’t want the man to go to law enforcement, repeatedly begging him not to and saying that he will do everything he can to repay the money.
On January 5, 2020, an officer attended a meeting between three of the four business owners, one explaining that when the financial reports were completed, they showed that $36,000 was missing.
The owners said Bray was the only person that was in charge of the money, meaning he was responsible for the missing $36,000. One owner also said Bray openly admitted in an e-mail that he took $36,000 from the Alumni Club, but will pay the money back.
Another owner said when he spoke to Bray about the missing money, Bray said he was going to pay it back and that he already had a “large chunk” of the money and will deposit it into the account.
Court documents say the owners said the Bray has 5.6% ownership in the business and not 60% like he told the person he took $25,000 from and that there was no agreement to be bought out.
Kevin Bray has been charged with theft and theft embezzlement.
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