November 17, 2023 |
Photo – Brenne Malek booking photo – Courtesy Carbon County Jail
A long-time HF Sinclair employee has been charged in circuit court with fraudulently purchasing over $60,000 worth of items using company credit cards.
All defendants in legal cases before the court should be considered innocent until proven otherwise.
On November 8th, Rawlins resident Brenne Elizabeth Malek was charged with 11 counts of unlawful use of a credit card and two counts of theft. The charges were brought about after Malek allegedly used her access to company credit cards to make tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of personal purchases.
According to Carbon County Circuit Court documents obtained by Bigfoot99, Malek, 36, was employed by HF Sinclair in 2014 as a bookkeeper. In 2019, Malek was promoted to the position of Procurement Specialist.
Court documents state that on the afternoon of August 12th, HF Sinclair Human Resources Director Jodi Smith contacted the Sinclair Police Department to say she was terminating Malek for fraud. Smith allegedly told the Sinclair PD that Malek had used company credit cards to make personal purchases totaling more than $50,000.
Malek was fired the next day.
On August 24th, Sinclair Police Chief Jeff Sanders received a phone call from HF Sinclair Vice President and Chief Council Teri Cotton-Santos. Chief Sanders said that Cotton-Santos informed him that Malek, in her role as Procurement Specialist, was responsible for issuing company credit cards to employees.
The cards are to be used exclusively to purchase items for the refinery.
Court documents state that Malek requested three new company credit cards under the name of “No Cardholder” and used two cards assigned to a former employee, Samual Archuleta. Malek was asked to destroy Archuleta’s cards as part of her normal job duties but failed to do so.
According to the court documents, Cotton-Santos said Malek amassed over $50,000 worth of personal purchases using the five fraudulently obtained credit cards,
During an August 30th online conference, Chief Sanders met with several other members of the HF Sinclair legal team. Associate General Counsel Thomas Jolley said Malek had used her five company credit cards to buy items from Amazon, Lululemon, and Ticket Master among others.
Court documents say that Jolley contacted Chief Sanders at a later date to inform the police chief that Malek had allegedly also been using another former employee’s credit card to buy personal items.
The former employee, David Noorani, was terminated by HF Sinclair in April of 2022. Between November 30th and December 4th, 2022, Malek allegedly used Noorani’s company credit card to illegally make $1,920.44 worth of purchases in Carbon County. Chief Sanders said he confirmed that Noorani was unable to have made the purchases himself because he was living in South Carolina at the time.
In Chief Sanders’ sworn affidavit, he said that Malek allegedly used her position as Procurement Specialist for HF Sinclair to increase the credit limit of the stolen cards.
Chief Sanders’ police report states that in June of this year, Malek allegedly used one of the fraudulently obtained credit cards to purchase tickets to a Kelsea Ballerini concert in Sandy, Utah, for $1,144.60. Chief Sanders said he found a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper that contained a clear picture of Malek standing in the front row of the concert.
Chief Sanders said, in his official statement, that Malek allegedly used the credit cards to purchase hotels rooms and tickets to various sporting events and that the defendant posted pictures of herself at those locations to her Facebook page.
Chief Sanders also said Malek allegedly paid several collections agencies over $6,000 to cover debts the defendant had accumulated under her maiden name of Burns.
Court documents indicate that from November 30, 2022, to August 18, 2023, Malek allegedly spent $63,840.25 with the six fraudulent HF Sinclair credit cards.
Malek was arrested earlier this month and is being held in the Carbon County Jail on $65,000 cash bond.
