Latest news with #embezzlement
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
OCC bans former Webster general counsel, ex-TD, JPMorgan bankers
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has banned four former bankers from future work in the industry, the agency disclosed Thursday. James Blose, once general counsel at Stamford, Connecticut-based Webster Bank, was barred from the industry after pleading guilty to bank fraud and engaging in illegal monetary transactions and being sentenced in April to four years in prison. Blose was involved in a decade-long embezzlement scheme that used his attorney trust accounts to cover personal expenses and transfer funds to accounts in the names of businesses he had created and controlled. Through this scheme, Blose was found to have stole roughly $7.4 million from his employers and used the money for his personal benefit, including buying a vacation property, luxury vehicles, and private jet charters. If the prohibition order is violated, Blose could face fines of up to $1 million or imprisonment for up to five years, or both. It could also lead to additional civil money penalties, the OCC noted. However, Blose has the right to request an informal hearing, which must be submitted in writing and received within 30 days of order service, according to the OCC. Lacey Ann Henry, a former teller manager at the Trooper, Pennsylvania, branch of TD from June 2020 to February 2022, accessed confidential customer information and withdrew at least $41,500 from customer checking accounts in November and December 2021, for her personal benefit, the OCC found. Henry 'engaged in violations of law and unsafe and unsound practices, which resulted in financial loss to the Bank and financial gain to Respondent, and demonstrated personal dishonesty,' the agency said in the prohibition order. Alonso Missael Gonzalez Ibarra, a former teller and associate operations lead at a Portland, Oregon, branch of JPMorgan Chase, stole $36,768 between June and October 2022 from two ATMs. In an attempt to cover up his theft, Ibarra, who worked at JPMorgan for roughly seven years, altered the totals in the ATM records to make the ATMs appear to be in balance, the OCC found. Cricel Santamaria, a former client service representative at a Stamford location of Webster Bank, obtained 62 images of checks from the lender's internal systems and sold them online between October 2021 and April 2022, the OCC found. The total reported check sale fraud was $237,374, while the bank lost about $108,000, the agency said.
South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Chinese cashier steals US$2.4 million from firm to fund cosmetic surgery, lavish lifestyle
A woman in China who earned a modest 8,000 yuan (US$1,100) a month embezzled nearly 17 million yuan (US$2.4 million) to pay for a lavish lifestyle and undergo a range of cosmetic surgeries. The image-changing sessions took place four times a year over a six-year period and cost 300,000 yuan (US$42,000) each time. She also cultivated a wealthy image on social media, spending about two million yuan (US$278,000) a year on luxury goods. These included diamond bracelets worth more than 100,000 yuan and limited-edition crocodile skin handbags. She also gambled in Macau casinos. Wang's high-rolling, luxurious lifestyle came to a halt when the tax authorities made an unannounced visit to her company. Photo: Weibo The 41-year-old, who used the pseudonym Wang Jing, worked as a cashier for a flower and gardening services company in Shanghai that was founded by a person surnamed Xu in 2018.
CBC
4 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Lawyers at centre of $7M real estate embezzlement case charged with fraud
A lavish-living Toronto lawyer couple are facing criminal charges after more than $7 million in client money was embezzled from their firm's trust accounts, much of it funnelled toward spending on luxury fashion and decor. Toronto police announced Thursday afternoon that Singa Bui, 42, who practised real estate law, has been charged with 42 counts including 24 of fraud over $5,000, 17 instances of criminal breach of trust and one count of possession of proceeds of crime over $5,000. Her husband and law partner, Nicholas Cartel, 61, whose legal practice focused on litigation and class actions, was charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Neither Bui nor a lawyer representing her immediately responded to CBC's emailed request for comment on Friday. Reached by phone, Cartel told CBC he will fight his charge vigorously, calling it baseless and "a ruse" to get him to provide evidence against his wife. "There's no evidence for my involvement whatsoever," he said. He said no one has told him what his fraud charge specifically relates to: who the alleged victim or victims are and what, exactly, he is alleged to have done wrong. "There's no information whatsoever. Absolute zero." Home-sale money misappropriated Nancy Marsilla said "it's about time" that the charges were filed. A former client of the firm, Marsilla says she is out $220,000 that Bui and Cartel's law firm had been holding onto after the sale of her home in 2021 while she settled her divorce. "It is devastating to know that someone in such a position of power and responsibility allegedly chose to manipulate and defraud the very clients they were hired to protect," she told CBC on Friday. "There must be stronger safeguards in place to protect people navigating major legal and financial transactions." The couple ran a boutique firm called Cartel & Bui LLP out of a smartly decorated office in Toronto's west end, until a number of real estate clients began complaining that money was going missing during home sales and purchases. Starting in September 2023, in a half-dozen southern Ontario home sales the firm handled, Cartel & Bui didn't pay off the sellers' mortgages as it was supposed to, according to records filed in civil lawsuits. Instead, it took the buyers' money and paid out the home equity to its client sellers, but held on to the rest, the records show. In perhaps the worst alleged embezzlement, some homebuyers who had agreed to acquire a house in Toronto forwarded more than $2 million to Cartel & Bui LLP in November toward the purchase. But within days, most of the funds disappeared from the firm's trust account. The deal never closed and the homebuyers have not recovered their money. Cartel, Bui and their firm are facing more than 15 lawsuits. In the course of those proceedings, Bui admitted in a sworn statement in November that she started pilfering client money from the firm's trust account as far back as 2014. She said she initially took smaller amounts"to make ends meet" but eventually embezzled tens of thousands of dollars at a time to fund "luxurious vacations," fine dining, private-school tuition for their children and "elegant furnishings and expensive art." Because her statement was compelled by a judge's order, it can't be used against her to support a criminal prosecution. In multiple interviews with CBC News and his court filings, Cartel has always strongly denied having any hand in the theft of client funds, and has repeatedly blamed his wife, who he says managed both their firm's and their household's finances. Neither Bui nor her lawyers have replied to CBC's multiple requests for comment over the last year. Police raided their midtown Toronto home in December and seized more than 1,000 items of high fashion and furniture, including designer dresses, footwear, suits, hats, ties and artwork. Both lawyers were also provisionally suspended from practising law in May of last year, while the Law Society of Ontario investigates. The Law Society has since brought disciplinary charges against Bui but not Cartel. The pair have already served a few weeks in jail, after they were both found in contempt of court last fall in the civil proceedings against them. No details on criminal allegations The police announcement on Thursday about the criminal charges against Bui and Cartel does not specify who the alleged victims are or any other details about the alleged criminal acts. But in a court application to get a warrant to search the couple's home in December, investigators said 20 people contacted them between December 2023 and May 2024 to make criminal complaints regarding Cartel & Bui LLP. That same document names more than 40 people plus banks and insurance companies as potential "victims." "Evidence uncovered to date substantiates the belief that the lawyers at Cartel & Bui LLP had been for years functionally using the firm's real estate trust account as a personal/business line-of-credit — unlawfully drawing on the trust account to fund a series of personal and business expenses with little-to-no-apparent-regard as to how those funds would be repaid," the police application says.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
72-year-old woman imprisoned for embezzling $700,000 from Holy Cross Church in Vero Beach
VERO BEACH – A 72-year-old woman guilty of embezzling around $700,000 from Holy Cross Catholic Church on July 18 was ordered to prison for a decade followed by 20 years of probation. Deborah Lynn True, a resident of Frederick, Colorado and a former parish administrator at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Vero Beach, was also ordered to pay the church $697,138.98 in restitution after being released from prison, Circuit Judge Robert Meadows ruled during her sentencing hearing in the Indian River County Courthouse. Standing before Meadows wearing a bright-colored print blouse and slacks, True remained silent as he imposed a sentence negotiated with state prosecutors during a May 1 hearing in which she pleaded no contest to first-degree grand theft. She was accused of misusing church donations over several years to pay off personal debts, records show. The church is at 500 Iris Lane on Orchid Island. The plea deal requires True to pay the restitution in equal monthly installments for the duration of her probation or face being returned to prison, court records show. In sentencing True, Meadows said when she's released from prison, she may not seek to terminate her probation term early and must make monthly restitution payments or face returning to prison. "You will not return to the Holy Cross Catholic Church and you are subject to warrantless searches and seizures of yourself and your property," Meadows told True. "Good luck to you ma'am." After court, Long said the only just sentence for True was a prison term. 'Stealing over $600,000 is bad enough, but taking it from a church and your fellow parishioners is especially egregious,' Long said. 'I thank the (Vero Beach Police Department) for bringing us such a strong case, and I believe the thoroughness of their investigation is why this matter resolved without a trial.' Bank account hidden from Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach True was arrested in September 2022 following a Vero Beach police investigation that began in December 2021 after the chief financial officer of the Diocese of Palm Beach reported True and the late Rev. Richard Murphy were suspected "of embezzling over $1 million in funds,' according to court filings. Murphy was pastor at Holy Cross until he died at age 80 in March 2020. True retired in July 2020 and moved to Jacksonville, then Colorado. An additional church bank account was discovered after a new pastor and bookkeeper were hired, an arrest affidavit stated. According to police investigators, in 2012 True and Murphy opened a bank account hidden from the Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach, and that nearly $1.5 million of parishioners' donations were fraudulently deposited into the account since 2015. Nearly $550,000 was used to pay True's personal lines of credit, and about $147,000 was deposited into True's personal checking accounts, records show. When police spoke with True via phone, she told investigators she transferred to the church in 1997 with Murphy. They had worked at a Catholic church in Stuart from the mid-1980s until 1997. She said her title at Holy Cross was 'parish administrator' and her job 'included tasks such as scheduling events, human resources, bookkeeping and payroll.' 'She was the only person who would deposit checks received by Holy Cross,' detectives noted. She eventually told investigators she used funds to pay off her personal debt, saying Murphy gave her permission. Police reported Murphy also appeared to benefit from the money, but because of his death a criminal investigation wasn't conducted to identify an amount. In court, after Meadows imposed True's punishment, she was fingerprinted, handcuffed and escorted to a holding cell to be transferred to the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections. Her Vero Beach attorney Andy Metcalf later noted True was "left standing alone to be charged in this case when Father Murphy died and she remains alone now in taking responsibility. " "These cases can result in very favorable outcomes if there is an ability to pay restitution. Ms. True was unable to do so," he said. "I have received letters of anger and disgust and I have received letters of support for her. One of the letters of support even questioning their fellow parishioners' lack of compassion and forgiveness, wondering if Father Murphy was alive, would others in the church have been so harsh in their judgment." (This story was updated with more information and photos.) Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms," a true-crime podcast. Reach her at This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Ex-employee of Holy Cross Church heads to prison for embezzling $700K Solve the daily Crossword
Arab News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Russia jails major general for six years over fraud at military theme park
Major General Vladimir Shesterov was detained last August for his role in the scheme at the Patriot ParkThe scandal at Patriot Park is one in a slew of criminal cases against former top officialsMOSCOW: A senior Russian Defense Ministry official was sentenced to six years in prison on Thursday after being found guilty of fraud and forgery in relation to an embezzlement scheme at a military theme park, the RIA state news agency General Vladimir Shesterov was detained last August for his role in the scheme at the Patriot Park, a war-themed tourist attraction outside Moscow. Two other men, including Pavel Popov, a former deputy defense minister, are also facing citing the investigation materials, said Shesterov and the ex-director of the park, Vyacheslav Akhmedov, who is also in custody, forged documents related to completed construction work at the park in the amount of some 26 million roubles ($332,000).The scandal at Patriot Park is one in a slew of criminal cases against former top officials that have engulfed the Russian army in recent fully admitted guilt, but insisted he had not received any material benefit from the scheme.'I am to blame, I don't whitewash myself, I sincerely repent,' he said in court, according to has also entered a guilty plea in his case against Popov, the former deputy defense minister, is ongoing. RIA reported that Popov had instructed Shesterov and Akhmedov to build him a two-story house, a guest house with a sauna, and a two-story garage on land Popov owned in the Moscow region — with the Defense Ministry footing the has previously denied wrongdoing. Reuters was unable to contact his lawyer on Park displays a vast collection of Russian and Soviet weaponry, and offers visitors the chance to clamber on tanks and take part in combat simulations. On its website, it also features a photo gallery of 'heroes of the special military operation' — Russia's official term for its war in Ukraine.
