ESSD and Vendor Agree to Split Loss After Cybercriminal Drains Funds Through Forged Emails, Fake Accounts, and Cryptocurrency Transfers
Excelsior Springs, Mo. (April 27, 2025) – In a stunning case of cybercrime that left the Excelsior Springs School District (ESSD) short more than $253,000, district officials and their vendor, Kansas City Audio Visual (KCAV), have agreed to split the loss after it became clear the stolen funds would not be recovered.
The two organizations reached a settlement after months of investigation revealed that the money, originally intended for KCAV, had been fraudulently diverted into a Texas woman’s shell company, quickly laundered through cryptocurrency, and lost. Neither ESSD’s insurance policy nor law enforcement agencies were able to retrieve the funds.
The theft had been kept under wraps for more than three years, until last week when Excelsior Springs Police Chief Gregory Dull announced that detectives had successfully identified the suspect behind the heist. Now, Deann Kay Strong, 41, of Corpus Christi, Texas, faces felony stealing charges of more than $25,000 in Clay County Circuit Court.
Excelsior Springs Police Chief Gregory Dull credited Detective Jeff Kaiser with unraveling the complex scheme that siphoned more than a quarter of a million dollars from the school district. For nearly three years, Kaiser methodically followed the trail, interviewing employees from BREX, LendingClub Bank, and Kansas City Audio Visual, and piecing together a tangled web of wire transfers, fake documents, and cryptocurrency laundering. He issued subpoenas, gathered critical financial records from Prosperity Bank and BREX, and worked side-by-side with the Clay County Prosecutor’s Office to build a case strong enough to bring charges against Deann Kay Strong.
However, local authorities were flabbergasted to learn that Strong had been arrested and appeared before a Texas judge, who released her on a $500 bond pending further proceedings.
A Single Email, A Quarter Million Dollars Lost
The theft began quietly on January 31, 2022, when an ESSD accountant received an email purporting to be from KCAV’s Chief Financial Officer. The message instructed ESSD’s accountant to send all future payments to a new account at LendingClub Bank, citing a companywide change in payment procedures.
The email looked convincing. It carried a KCAV email signature, CC’d a familiar KCAV representative, and attached two official-looking documents—one explaining the payment change and another appearing to confirm the new banking information on LendingClub Bank letterhead.
On February 14, 2022, the ESSD accountant wired $253,692 to the account, believing she was paying a legitimate KCAV invoice.
Eight days later, when a KCAV sales rep called to schedule a pickup for payment, the truth began to unravel. ESSD had not paid KCAV—it had sent a quarter of a million dollars to a fraudster.
A Sophisticated Scheme: Fake Companies, Forged Documents, and Crypto Laundering
Behind the fraud was Deann K. Strong, who had opened a commercial banking account at Brex Financial Services under the name DKs Global Services LLC—a shell company with no real business operations.
Within a day of receiving the district’s wire transfer, Strong moved $253,000 from her Brex account into her personal Prosperity Bank account. From there, $233,000 was transferred into cryptocurrency through an exchange called West Realm Shires (also known as FTX US), which itself collapsed later that year under federal investigation for massive fraud.
Bank records show that Strong used the remaining funds to make hundreds of smaller purchases through Amazon, PayPal, and other vendors. Prosperity Bank eventually closed her account in May 2022 for fraudulent activity, but by then, the stolen money had evaporated into untraceable crypto wallets.
Anatomy of a Breach: Hacked Emails and Oprah’s Signature
The scheme was more sophisticated than a simple phishing scam.
Investigators uncovered that KCAV’s Microsoft Outlook email system had been compromised. Hackers created hidden “rules” within multiple KCAV employee accounts, causing key emails related to finance and payments to be automatically diverted into obscure folders, bypassing employees’ normal inboxes.
Further forensic investigation revealed that the hackers also forged emails purporting to come from ESSD’s accountant. One fraudulent email sent to KCAV appeared legitimate but was never actually created or sent by the district, indicating the hackers had complete control over certain email communications.
The supporting documents provided to ESSD were equally brazen. One attachment, designed to impersonate LendingClub Bank, included a signature line supposedly from a bank executive. In reality, it was a cut-and-paste of Oprah Winfrey’s signature, matched by investigators to publicly available online samples.
“This wasn’t just a fake invoice,” one investigator familiar with the case said. “It was a complete and carefully engineered deception, layered to look legitimate at every step.”
Why the Money Was Never Recovered
Superintendent Jaret Tomlinson confirmed in police records that ESSD’s insurance carrier denied the district’s claim. The insurer argued that because the funds were transferred voluntarily, even if based on fraudulent instructions, and were immediately withdrawn and laundered, coverage was invalid.
The FBI was contacted early in the investigation, but Excelsior Springs Police reported receiving little federal assistance in recovering the money. Private investigators working for KCAV reached similar dead ends.
Ultimately, facing the grim reality that the money was gone, ESSD and KCAV agreed to split the financial loss equally. Each absorbed roughly $126,800, a bitter compromise that averted a drawn-out legal dispute between the two entities.
Who is Deann Kay Strong?
Public records show Strong has a history of financial instability. Born in 1983, she resided in Corpus Christi and opened DKs Global Services LLC in late 2021. She listed the business as involved in “custom merchandise and makeup” sales, although investigators found no evidence that the company ever operated legitimately.
Strong’s financial records show numerous overdrafts, small-dollar transactions, and what police described as an opportunistic approach to banking—maintaining low balances, rapidly shifting funds, and taking advantage of minimal account oversight at online banks like Brex.
While Strong listed a man named Patrick Lampton as the beneficiary of her Prosperity Bank account, investigators found no evidence linking him to the fraudulent activity.
A Hard Lesson in Cybersecurity
The Excelsior Springs theft is a painful case study in the vulnerabilities public institutions face as they increasingly rely on digital communications and online banking. Still, the sting of the loss lingers.
At the April 22, 2025, Board of Education meeting, Excelsior Springs Superintendent Jaret Tomlinson lamented the loss, taking some solace in the fact that the suspect had been identified and charged.
“We probably won’t see a penny from it,” Tomlinson said, “but at least they might eventually have to pay the piper.”