KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former employee at Galvmet, who lost her job when the company declared bankruptcy as a result of embezzlement, says she can’t believe a longtime worker who helped build the company also played a crucial role in destroying it.
Susan Sowerby now sells sheet metal for another firm. But she says she considered Irene Brooner a friend. The two often went to church together.
Federal prosecutors have charged Brooner with embezzling nearly $3 million from Galvmet, a sheet metal fabricator.
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Court documents say Brooner led a lavish lifestyle, using the money to pay off her mortgage, pay her children’s college tuition and remodel her Northland home.
Sowerby says Galvmet’s owner, Ernie Ketcham, told her he has forgiven Brooner, who he fired in February.
“He and I had a conversation one morning,” Sowerby explained. “I just asked him how he was dealing with everything. And he said I’ve forgiven her. I can’t forget that it happened. But I can forgive her because that’s how I am going to move on. So I can’t have anything against her if he can forgive her and his life was upset so much. Then I can’t.”
Sowerby says Galvmet had $14 million dollars in sales during the company’s best year. But she always wondered why it never seemed to be enough to make the firm profitable.
Sowerby had a role in helping liquidate the company after it declared bankruptcy. She says more than 20 workers were upset when they were laid off, but later when they learned of the embezzlement that cause the company’s collapse, Sowerby says many feel betrayed by a woman they trusted with the company’s finances.