Former bank employee accused of stealing over $500,000 | Local news

Bryce Zitterkopf, 35, waived his preliminary hearing on August 16 and was charged with six serious crimes: making false written statements to obtain property or credit, two counts of crimes against intellectual property, two counts of unauthorized use of a credit card and theft.

According to court documents, he is also charged with child endangerment (a felony) and aggravated possession of meth and marijuana in a separate case related to a search conducted in connection with the theft allegations.

According to court documents, Zitterkopf was arrested in April on more than 40 charges, including unauthorized use of a credit card, theft and intellectual property crimes.

He was accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars by opening credit card lines for himself through his employment at First Northern Bank, increasing their limits, accumulating fees and waiving interest.

The charges were reduced to six counts of financial crimes, which he now faces.

When confronted by bank management late last year, Zitterkopf admitted, according to court documents, that he had increased the credit limit on his personal credit card and owed the bank $319,431.31 on several cards he had issued to himself.

He is accused of waiving interest on his credit card debt for several years, thereby avoiding paying $205,559.30 in interest he owed the bank, according to court documents. He obtained the waiver by using his employee access to the First Northern Bank computer network.

Of those credit card balances, he allegedly used a fraudulently created card to spend more than $46,827.63 at various Gillette stores and online shops from August 2017 to June 2018, according to court documents.

He is alleged to have spent $157,338.85 using another card in Campbell County from June 2018 to March 2024.

According to court documents, he also made an unauthorized payment of $18,834.65 from First Northern Bank to pay off his credit card debt.

While still working for the bank in January 2023, Zitterkopf allegedly credited his credit card with thousands of bonus points, which he then redeemed for $900 and applied to the balance he owed to First Northern Bank.

In August or September, First Northern Bank found questionable transaction codes on Zitterkopf's personal credit card and later learned that he had waived monthly interest fees and increased his own credit limit, court documents show.

Zitterkopf was apparently confronted with the transactions in October and fired from the bank.

When reviewing payments made to Zitterkopf's account, bankers discovered that some payments originated from a First Northern account used to settle debit card disputes. They told investigators that Zitterkopf effectively consolidated multiple chargeback transactions into single payments to his credit account, making it difficult to distinguish the individual transactions from one another.

In March, the bank learned of four overdue credit accounts that were also linked to Zitterkopf. In total, he is accused of opening five credit cards, increasing credit limits, accumulating fees and collecting credit card bonus points for himself.

He is alleged to have opened the credit cards for himself, manipulated banking systems to keep them and transferred money from a First Northern account to pay off his debts.

First Northern bankers also told investigators that Zitterkopf had “credited” himself with credit card points, which he typically collected through purchases and redeemed for cash to pay off his credit card balance.

When police contacted him, Zitterkopf apparently admitted the allegations and said he believed he could repay the bank's money with winnings at Wyoming Downs, an outside betting site.

When police searched his home, they found about 11 grams of meth, as well as small amounts of marijuana and THC-containing edibles. The child endangerment charge stems from the 1-year-old child of Zitterkopf's roommate, who shared the home where he kept meth, court documents show.

Each of these financial crimes can result in a prison sentence of up to five or ten years respectively.