Theft from SC agency gets woman nearly 3 years

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A woman who stole more than $300,000 from a South Carolina probation account has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

A judge ordered 31-year-old Crystal Bric to spend 33 months behind bars Tuesday. She pleaded guilty in June to one count of bank fraud.

Prosecutors say Bric was living in a halfway house in 2007 when she took the bank account number from a South Carolina Department of Probation, Pardon and Parole check and used it to pay her rent, her utilities, and cell phones for herself and friends over the next two years.

Authorities say Bric’s scheme lasted so long because no one at the probation agency was reconciling or monitoring the department’s expenses on a monthly basis.