Long-Time HF Sinclair Employee Charged with $60k Fraud
A long-time employee at HF Sinclair, a reputable company, has been charged with fraudulently purchasing over $60,000 worth of items using company credit cards. Brenne Elizabeth Malek, a 36-year-old Rawlins resident, has been accused of 11 counts of unlawful use of a credit card and two counts of theft.
The charges have come after Malek allegedly used her access to the company’s credit cards to make tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of personal purchases. Malek had been employed by HF Sinclair since 2014 as a bookkeeper and was later promoted to the position of Procurement Specialist in 2019.
The allegations against Malek surfaced on August 12th when HF Sinclair’s Human Resources Director, Jodi Smith, contacted the Sinclair Police Department to report the fraud. Smith claimed that Malek had misused the company credit cards, racking up purchases exceeding $50,000.
Following the report, Malek was terminated from her position at HF Sinclair the next day. Additional information came to light on August 24th when Sinclair Police Chief Jeff Sanders received a call from the company’s Vice President and Chief Counsel, Teri Cotton-Santos.
During the call, Cotton-Santos revealed that Malek, in her role as Procurement Specialist, was responsible for issuing company credit cards to employees. It was during this duty that Malek allegedly requested three new credit cards under the name No Cardholder and used two previously assigned to another employee, Samuel Archuleta, without destroying them as instructed.
According to court documents, Malek allegedly accumulated over $50,000 of personal purchases using these fraudulently obtained credit cards. Moreover, she reportedly used another former employee’s credit card, David Noorani, who had been terminated by HF Sinclair in April of 2022. Malek allegedly made illegal purchases worth $1,920.44 using Noorani’s card between November 30th and December 4th, 2022, while Noorani was residing in South Carolina.
The police report suggests that Malek utilized her position as Procurement Specialist to raise the credit limits on the stolen cards. One notable purchase, according to Chief Sanders, was tickets to a Kelsea Ballerini concert in Sandy, Utah, for which Malek supposedly used one of the fraudulently obtained credit cards. Chief Sanders substantiated this by finding a photograph in the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper showing Malek in the front row of the concert.
Additional allegations state that Malek used the credit cards to book hotel rooms and purchase tickets for various sporting events. Furthermore, she allegedly posted pictures of herself at these locations on her Facebook page. Chief Sanders alleges that Malek also paid several collections agencies over $6,000 to cover debts amassed under her maiden name of Burns.
According to court documents, Malek allegedly spent a staggering $63,840.25 between November 30, 2022, and August 18, 2023, using the six fraudulently obtained HF Sinclair credit cards. These details emerged during an online conference between Chief Sanders and members of HF Sinclair’s legal team, including Associate General Counsel Thomas Jolley.
Malek was arrested earlier this month and is currently held in the Carbon County Jail on a $65,000 cash bond. It is important to note that all defendants in legal cases should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
The case against Malek raises concerns about financial fraud within companies and serves as a reminder for businesses to have robust internal controls to prevent such incidents. As the legal process unfolds, HF Sinclair will likely review their procurement procedures to ensure that similar situations do not occur in the future.
