An Earling man has been sentenced to four months in federal prison on wire fraud charges for stealing more than $140,000 from his employer. According to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, 34-year-old Mitch William Gross was sentenced Friday, Aug. 15, after admitting that he had misused company credit cards between September 2021 and October 2022 while working for Ruan Transportation Corporation. Court documents show Gross purchased prepaid gift cards, Pokémon cards, and gaming items for personal use and falsified expense reports to make them appear legitimate. In addition to his four-month prison term, Gross was ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $146,590 in restitution. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with assistance from the Des Moines Police Department.
