A former loan officer from Burlington, Iowa, Kylie Jo Bench, 27, pleaded guilty on May 27, 2026, in federal court in Cedar Rapids to one count of bankruptcy fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft after orchestrating a vehicle lien stripping scheme against her employer. Bench, formerly known as Kylie Jo Parrish, admitted to her role in the scheme while employed at a Dubuque credit union.
Bench was hired by the credit union in 2022 and subsequently refinanced over $100,000 in loans for two late-model vehicles, a Ford and a Dodge, with her new employer. In August 2022, without the credit union's knowledge, she sold both vehicles at a Cedar Rapids car dealership. Bench provided the dealership with a fraudulent letter, purportedly from a credit union executive on fake letterhead, falsely stating the loans were "paid off" and had "a zero balance," despite neither she nor a co-borrower having repaid them.
In March 2023, Bench further committed bankruptcy fraud by filing a document in a voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy case. In this filing, she falsely denied under oath transferring any property that benefited an insider, concealing the sales of the Ford and Dodge which had benefited the other individual owing money on the vehicle loans. Bench is the fourth person convicted of bankruptcy fraud in the Northern District of Iowa this year.
Sentencing for Bench, who remains free on bond, will be scheduled after a presentence report is prepared. She faces a mandatory minimum two-year prison term, a possible maximum of seven years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, and three years of supervised release. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Timothy L. Vavricek. The Department of Justice recently established the National Fraud Enforcement Division to combat fraud, supporting President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.