Bank fraud case against James City man moves to federal court

Federal authorities have taken over the case against a James City man accused of running a fraud scheme that cost SunTrust Bank more than $90,000, according to a the Williamsburg-James City Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

More than three dozen charges against 40-year-old Rajesh Attri that were placed on a General District Court docket Thursday were all dropped. Among them were charges of credit card forgery, three counts of identity theft, 16 counts of obtaining money by false pretenses and 17 counts of issuing bad checks.

Mike Gaten, assistant commonwealth's attorney, said Thursday that a formal criminal charge made by a U.S. Attorney's Office prosecutor had been filed in federal court.



James City police said Attri is accused of paying three women to open bank accounts with small initial deposits, then making numerous fraudulent deposits and writing bad checks to withdraw the money, knowing the funds in the account were insufficient. The alleged incidents occurred between July 18 and Sept. 3, 2013, according to a criminal complaint against Attri.



In one instance noted in the complaint, a $25,000 deposit was made via check to an account opened in a woman's name. It notes the deposit amount was entered as $250, and a "correction credit" was immediately issued by SunTrust under the belief the customer had entered an incorrect amount. The full $25,000 was credited to the account before the check cleared, the document indicates. Additional similar incidents are cited in the complaint.

A man, later identified as Attri, was seen on ATM security video making the deposit, according to the complaint. It adds that Attri admitted to police he made the deposit knowing the check would not clear.