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Uncommon Payback For Crime

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-885077.mp3

Kansas City, Mo. – A Kansas City dentist gets an airplane in restitution, as the woman who stole from him heads toward prison.

It is one of the odder forfeiture and seizures to pass through Kansas City Federal District Court in several years.

42-year-old Sandra Brandes was sentenced to a year and three months in prison for a bank fraud scheme against the practice of Doctor J. Daniel Fleming of Kansas City, Missouri. The Ottawa, Kansas woman, once an employee of the Crossroads District dentist, had used the $77,000 she stole to buy an experimental airplane kit.

Assistant United States Attorney Dan Nelson says the victim got better value by taking the plane, intact--"in fact the government pursued this restitution arrangement, which was to say the least unusual because we thought it was the way to maximize how much money the victim would receive back."

The two-seater airplane was assembled by Brandes and her husband. Value, $70,000 to $80,000.

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