Alaska Man Drank All the Money Away He Stole From CUs & Banks

An armed transport guard who stole more than $500,000 from credit union and bank ATMs in Alaska literally drank away all of the money he stole, according to court documents.

U.S. District Timothy M. Burgess sentenced Austin Nolan Dwight Rutherford, 29, on Tuesday to two and a half years in prison and ordered him to pay $579,400 in restitution. He is also required to pay more than $86,000 in additional restitution claims for expenses related to his employer’s investigation.

Rutherford pleaded guilty to two felony counts of theft, embezzlement, and misapplication of funds, according to a plea deal filed in U.S. District Court in Juneau.

He worked for Axiom Armored Transport, which provided armed transportation for cash deliveries for ATMs at the $3.2 billion NuVision Credit Union based in Huntington Beach, Calif., the $11.8 billion Global Credit Union (formerly Alaska USA) in Anchorage, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo Bank and Key Bank.

Rutherford admitted he stole ATM cash from March 2020 to May 2022. Although he was fired in March 2022, he continued to deposit the stolen funds into his bank account through May. Prosecutors said Rutherford was also a manager for the company, which enabled him to conceal his theft.

In a sentencing memo to Judge Burgess, Rutherford’s defense attorney, Jane Imholte, wrote that the evidence shows the former armed transport guard spent a substantial sum at bars in the Juneau area and has no money left. However, Judge Burgess did not seem to believe that a person could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on bar tabs over two years, according to the memo.

“In speaking to various bartenders throughout Juneau, Investigator Deatrich Sheffield of the Alaska Federal Public Defender’s Office confirmed that Mr. Rutherford was well-known to them. He was a nightly regular at more than one bar and was known for “ringing the bell,” which meant he paid for a round for the entire bar,” Imholte wrote. “Because he paid in cash, it is impossible to verify actual amounts, but a conservative estimate of $500 a night, six nights a week, over two years at a single bar comes out to $227,760.”

Rutherford was known to frequent more than one bar every night and bartenders remembered him because he was a good tipper, according to Sheffield’s investigation.

“The evidence strongly supports Mr. Rutherford’s contention, and the government’s belief, that he spent his ill-gotten funds in a sad attempt to curry favor and friendships,” Imholte concluded. “There is simply no evidence that Mr. Rutherford has any money hidden anywhere.”