Embezzling Jacksonville banker sentenced to 5 years

Embezzling Jacksonville banker Christopher David Boston was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday afternoon for embezzling at least $10.5 million from his job at Fifth Third Bank over a four-year period.

Boston, 40, pleaded guilty in March to bank fraud. He also must pay $2 million in restitution to the bank after he's released. He faced up to 30 years in prison and a $4.4 million fine.

Boston's sentencing was delayed last month after Senior U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. recused himself for an undisclosed reason. District Judge Brian Davis will handle the sentencing.

Boston had been free on bond and was recently allowed by a judge to travel to Ohio to help his parents with home repair issues before returning to Jacksonville for sentencing, court records show.

Boston operated a bank-fraud scheme that included stealing at least $10.5 million from one corporate account and transferring money from two individual accounts to cover the original thefts. The embezzlement occurred over 3 1/2 years ending in April 2013 at the Fifth Third Bank off San Jose Boulevard in north Mandarin.

A victim of the scheme whose husband lost and then got back nearly $6 million told the Times-Union that Boston’s actions devastated her family and refuted any notion of him being considered a Robin Hood-like character for helping his customers.

Court records show Boston used $210,000 to make $2,000 monthly mortgage payments on his family’s Mandarin home, install a backyard pool and for other expenses. The home on Emilys Crossing Court was turned over to Boston’s wife in a divorce last year, and Boston said he’s now living in another Mandarin home in the 11500 block of Summer Brook Court.

Prosecutors said Boston used the rest of the embezzled money to help his customers, and ultimately his own standing in the bank, with favors such as paying off troubled loans and making “off-book” loans to those whose applications had been denied.

The bank replenished the embezzled accounts and had arranged new loans with Boston’s customers, recovering all but about $2 million, which is federally insured, court records show.

Boston, never arrested, was asked to sign a $20,000 signature bond. Prosecutors didn’t seek detention since they considered him neither a threat to the community nor, with a 2-year-old son, a flight risk.