Minnesota woman sentenced for fraud, laundering thousands through north-central Iowa casino

NORTHWOOD — A Minnesota woman who defrauded a nail salon owner out of more than $100,000 and then engaged in a laundering method called “bill stuffing” at a north-central Iowa casino to conceal the proceeds has been sentenced to ten years in prison.

37-year-old Mary Kate Nguyen from Brooklyn Park Minnesota received the prison term after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of contempt of court.

The US Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa’s office says that Nguyen in 2016 told the nail salon owner that she operated a loan brokering business and that she could help build the victim’s credit by obtaining and paying off loans for her. The victim provided various means of identification, with Nguyen using the victim’s identity to obtain over $90,000 in loans at four different financial institutions. She also instructed the victim to make a series of wires with the loan proceeds to Iowa, purportedly to expedite the loan repayment process. Instead of paying off the loans in full, Nguyen used the loan proceeds for her own benefit.

Between November 2016 and February 2017, Nguyen and others acting at her direction engaged in “bill stuffing” at the Diamond Jo Casino near Northwood. “Bill stuffing” is the practice of creating slot machine tickets by inserting currency and then cashing out those tickets at a casino in order to create a paper trail. By “bill stuffing” Nguyen concealed the illegal sources of the funds she had obtained.

While on pre-trial release, Nguyen attempted to perpetrate a series of financial frauds in Minnesota and North Dakota, repeatedly providing false and fraudulent bank statements and other financial documents to banks in attempts to obtain loans to purchase commercial and residential properties. In September 2022, Nguyen submitted the winning bid of $1.3 million to purchase the former federal courthouse in Bemidji. She also obstructed justice by threatening to “hang” investigators.

US District Court Judge Leonard Strand sentenced Nguyen to 120 months in prison, fined her $20,000, and ordered her to make $131,175 in restitution to her victim. Strand during sentencing stated that Nguyen was an “extreme danger to society” and a “substantial, serious menace to society” with respect to financial crimes.