Grant

GRUNDY CENTER — The former executive director of the Conrad Chamber-Main Street organization and secretary/treasurer of the Beaman Conrad Emergency Response Team (BCERTS) has pled guilty to four counts of felony theft and two aggravated misdemeanors after admitting to stealing thousands of dollars from both entities.

According to previous reporting in the T-R, Krista Lyn Grant, 49, of Conrad was arrested back in 2023 after an investigation into “questionable transactions” revealed that she had written $23,410.31 worth of checks to herself from the BCERTS accounts over a four-year period from 2019 to 2023.

In February of 2024, she faced additional charges over allegations that she had stolen thousands of dollars from the Chamber-Main Street organization during her tenure there as well as making a slew of unauthorized personal purchases with C-MS funds.

“The Defendant, from on or about Sept. 12, 2019, through Sept. 11, 2023 in Grundy County, Iowa, knowingly receive proceeds from a specific unlawful activity, to-wit: the defendant used her employer’s credit cards without authorization and used her employer’s billing account at Hometown Foods to make personal purchases; took cash for 25 of 26 can/bottle donation bin redemptions, cashed checks made out to Conrad Main Street and kept the money, and transferred money or wrote debit memos on the Conrad Main Street account and kept the money for herself, thereby profiting on a continuing basis while committing acts of theft and unauthorized use of a credit card which are indictable offenses,” a criminal complaint read.

The most serious of the charges, unlawful criminal conduct — criminal activity, a Class B felony, carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years. On March 3, Grant pled guilty to six total offenses: first degree theft (a Class C felony), two counts of second degree theft and one count of credit card fraud (all Class D felonies), and two counts of third degree theft (both aggravated misdemeanors).

She will be sentenced at the Grundy County Courthouse in Grundy Center on April 21.