ALBANY, Ky. (LEX 18) — In Clinton County, a former manager at Bluegrass Stockyards in Albany faces criminal charges because police say he and a woman stole more than $500,000 from the company.
Police arrested 48-year-old Bret Carver, a former Albany Bluegrass Stockyard manager, and 38-year-old Brittany Parmley Gerkey on March 12, 2025, for allegedly embezzling money from the business.
According to an indictment, Carver and Gerkey are charged with theft and unlawful access to a computer. Detectives say the duo took $554,780 from the Bluegrass Stockyards in Albany from February 2022 to May 2024.
The Albany Stockyards filed a lawsuit against Bret Carver, Brittany Parmley Gerkey and her husband, Josh Gerkey, and C&C Farm, an unincorporated Kentucky association owned by Carver.
The lawsuit alleges that Carver and Parmley devised a scheme to steal money from the Stockyards.
It alleges that Carver would manually enter a fake cattle sale into the stockyards system under an existing client's name to generate a check made out to a fake seller, although no cattle was sold. In the lawsuit, Bluegrass Stockyards alleges Carver would then endorse the check by apparently forging the client's signature, placing his own below it, and sometimes in his name.
In addition, the lawsuit claims that Brittany Gerkey would help Carver by depositing money back into Bluegrass Stockyard's account from his personal account and match it with prior fake cattle sale entries.
The lawsuit also claims that from September 2022 to July 2023, Brittany created duplicate cattle sale entries when a customer auctioned cattle through the stockyards. It says she issued a check to the cattle seller and a portion for herself, depositing them into her account or her minor son's.
From February through April 2024, Brittany is also accused of issuing several checks to her husband, Josh Gerkey, who sometimes sold cattle through the stockyards. The checks during this time period were not associated with legitimate sales and totaled $60,771, the lawsuit said.
Brittany was fired from Stockyards in May 2024. Carver was fired from the stockyards in July 2023.
The company say it discovered the alleged scheme on April 28, 2024. In the lawsuit, it claims Brittany transferred funds from Bluegrass Stockyards of Stanford's custodial account - where she was now working - to cover the money missing from Bluegrass Stockyards in Albany.
This caused Stanford's balance to be overdrawn. The lawsuit states that Stockyards Albany uncovered the alleged scheme while investigating what caused the balance to become overdrawn.
The lawsuit claims that Carver allegedly misappropriated $4.8M from Bluegrass Stockyards and conspired with Brittany to do so. It claims Brittany misappropriated $179,286.
Brittany Gerkey and Bret Carver are scheduled to be arraigned on their criminal charges at 9 a.m. on Thursday, April 10, in Clinton County.
