Embezzlement Scheme at Alabama Credit Union Nets Probation

Two of three former employees have been sentenced for participating in a scheme that embezzled more than $61,000 from the $65 million Valley Credit Union in Tuscumbia, Ala.

Tonya M. Payne was sentenced to two years’ probation on one count of bank larceny at U.S District Court in Florence, Ala., on Sept. 6. She was employed at the credit union as an accounting clerk, according to court records. On Aug. 30, Stacey Marie Mathes, also was placed on two years of probation on one count of bank larceny. She worked at the cooperative as a loan officer.

Beth Ann Ledbetter, a  former branch manager, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 22 on one count of bank larceny.

The three employees pleaded guilty earlier for their involvement in the embezzlement scheme. They also paid full restitution of $61,666 to Valley CU in September 2012, court documents show.

Between Aug. 1, 2001 and Aug. 12, 2012, Payne, Mathes and Ledbetter wrote checks from their checking accounts to make payments on their credit union loan accounts, but the checks were never posted or cleared, according to court documents.

On other occasions, no checks were written, presented or cleared, yet the employees still had payments credited to their Valley CU loan accounts, the documents showed.

The credits to Payne’s, Mathes’ and Ledbetter’s loan accounts were covered by other Valley CU members’ account deposits. Court papers state the other members’ deposits were held before being presented to Valley CU’s money market account at First Metro Bank. However, other members’ deposits were posted to their accounts without delay.

According to court documents, Valley CU deposits to its money market account at First Metro Bank were not made on a daily basis and the sporadic nature of the deposits facilitated the wrongful posting of the checks. There was no loss to other members’ accounts, but the loss affected Valley CU’s money market account at First Metro Bank, court records show.

Hayden woman indicted by federal grand jury in $202,994 bank embezzlement case in Alabama

A Hayden woman was indicted today by a federal grand jury on a charge that she embezzled money from the Warrior bank where she worked, federal authorities announced. The indictment seeks to have her forfeit $202,994 as proceeds of illegal activity.
The one-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham charges Frances Duckworth, 51, with embezzling from Superior Bank and its successor banks between November 2009 and August 2012, according to a joint statement from U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Roy Sexton.

Duckworth worked as head teller at the Warrior bank branch during that time, according to the statement. The bank is now Cadence Bank.

The Secret Service investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry Cornelius is prosecuting the case.

A Hayden woman has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for embezzling money from the bank where she worked.

Federal authorities say 51-year-old Frances Duckworth was sentenced Wednesday to serve 27 months in prison. Duckworth pleaded guilty in March to embezzling money from the Warrior bank where she worked between November 2009 and August 2012.

Authorities say Duckworth must also forfeit $202,994 to the government as proceeds of illegal activity and must pay the same amount in restitution to the bank. She will also be on supervised release for five years after her release.

Prison sentence for Ala. woman convicted of embezzlement tailored to her new pregnancy

A federal judge has tailored a sentence for a woman convicted of embezzling who is newly pregnant and wants to avoid having her baby in jail.




The Mobile Press-Register reports (http://bit.ly/pFOeTk ) that Danielle Krystan Winkler was sentenced to four months in federal prison but was ordered to begin serving immediately so she'll be out by the time she gives birth.



Winkler will be on five years' supervised release.



The 29-yearold pleaded guilty to bank fraud in April, admitting to stealing $135,000 through 164 withdrawals from customer accounts at America's First Federal Credit Union in Mobile. She also has to pay $5,000 to the credit union and $126,259 to the bank's insurance company.



Her attorney, Art Powell, said Winkler didn't spend the money "to enjoy some extravagant lifestyle." He said she also has a 14-month-old son.

Former Birmingham, Alabama bank employee indicted

 A federal grand jury today indicted a Hoover woman for embezzling money from the bank where she worked, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Roy Sexton.



The indictment filed in U.S. District Court charges Regina Stewart, 48, with two counts of embezzling money from Nexity Bank in Jefferson County while she was employed there. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of $45,745 from Stewart as proceeds of illegal activity.



According to the indictment, Stewart embezzled the money by fraudulently redeeming certificates of deposit held by two clients of the bank.



“Embezzlement by bank employees is a serious crime that undermines the public’s trust in the financial system,” Vance said. “That trust, and the stability of our financial institutions, must be protected,” Vance said.



The maximum sentence for embezzlement by a bank employee is 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.



The Secret Service investigated this matter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis A. Barlow is prosecuting the case.



This prosecution is part of President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency task force to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.



Members of the public are reminded that the indictment contains only charges. A defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

Two men sentenced in Birmingham, Alabama to prison for skimming Compass bank accounts

Two men Thursday were ordered to serve six months in a federal prison, followed by home detention, for their roles in a Birmingham bank fraud that took thousands of dollars from the accounts of older people.Their co-defendant had been ordered in August to serve 1 hour in prison, plus home detention, a sentence criticized by prosecutors as too lenient. All three pleaded guilty, and Compass Bank repaid the money to the accounts.Johnathan Goods, 33, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Abdul Kallon to six months in prison, six months home detention, followed by three years su­pervised release. The judge also said Goods will be re­s p o n s i b l e f o r paying $56,800, plus interest, in res­titution jointly with his two co-defendants to Compass Bank.The U.S. Attorneys Office objected to Goods' sen­tence. Peggy Sanford, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorneys Office, said the court departed from the cal­culated guidelines range in order to impose a split sen­tence of incarceration and home detention.Kallon said he believed the sentence to be appropri­ate within the goals of sen­tencing for punishment.Kallon based his sentenc­ing of Goods and co-de­fendant Justin Salter on fed­eral criminal guidelines expected to go into effect in November."Johnathan's truly sorry," attorney Joe McLean said. "He's ready to make amends by paying his restitution and is ready to start his life over."Salter was sentenced to six months in prison and two months home detention followed by three years su­pervised release and the res­titution. He was remanded into the custody of the U.S. Marshal after the hearing. Salter said he had deep re­morse and regret and apol­ogized to his family during the hearing.The bank fraud scheme involved account numbers from dormant bank ac­counts of older people, ac­cording to court documents. Goods, a former Compass Bank employee, identified the accounts. Salter would bring in withdrawal slips us­ing the account numbers for Haley Patterson, a bank teller and Salter's then girl­friend, to withdraw money. Patterson served a 1-hour sentence in August and is serving an eight-month home detention sentence.In all, six transactions involving Patterson totaled $41,800. Another $15,000 was withdrawn involving Goods, Salter and two tellers not involved in the scheme, according to court docu­ments.

Blind justice: 10 years for former Alabama bank clerk

A Decatur woman who stole thousands from a blind woman’s bank account stood poised with her attorney seeking probation for a first-degree theft conviction, but a judge gave her prison time Monday.“Your record is clean, but there are some things I can’t get over, and this is one of them. I’m sentencing you to 10 years in prison,” Morgan County Circuit Judge Glenn Thompson told Kerry Bozell during her sentencing hearing.
Assistant District Attorney Stacy Adams asked the judge to consider Bozell’s denial of a confession she gave investigators in contemplating her sentence.“I don’t know any other way to put it, judge: She lied,” Adams said.Bozell’s attorney, Hubert Porter, said he would appeal the case. Thompson set an appeal bond of $30,000. Deputies took Bozell to the County Jail pending her posting bail on the bond.A jury convicted Bozell, 45, in April of first-degree theft involving money she embezzled from Gwendolyn “Gwen” Lamon, a 79-year-old blind woman. Bozell, of 1002 Way Thru the Woods, was Lamon’s personal banker at the downtown Regions Bank location.Testimony during Bozell’s trial revealed that Lamon’s caregivers found discrepancies in her bank accounts.The caregivers and Lamon arranged a meeting with the bank’s president, who instructed the bank’s security manager to investigate. The manager arranged a setup to catch Bozell during a transaction. Lamon and a caregiver went to the bank June 4, 2009, to withdraw $750. They did so and Bozell added $1,000 more than the requested amount, but did not give it to Lamon, according to testimony. The security manager confronted Bozell 30 minutes later and searched her purse, but didn’t find the extra money. He searched her desk drawer and found customer receipts that she had not given to Lamon as the bank requires. Bozell had used the embezzlement scheme, stealing from Lamon’s account between March and June 2009, authorities said. Decatur Police Detective Justin Lyon probed the theft and ultimately arrested Bozell on July 8. A grand jury later indicted her. Lyon said Bozell confessed she stole the money because she feared her husband was going to lose his job.During her trial, outside the jury’s presence, she denied making the statement.The bank reimbursed $9,500 to Lamon. During Bozell’s sentencing Monday, Thompson ordered her to pay that amount in restitution to the bank.

Former Dothan, Alabama bank exec faces federal theft charge

A former Dothan bank executive was recently charged with stealing from his employer of nearly 20 years. Federal court records show James E. Goldsborough, 70, was recently charged with a criminal bill of information of felony theft, embezzlement or misapplication by a bank officer.
Federal court records indicate Goldsborough was employed as the president and later executive vice president in Dothan of PeoplesSouth Bank. The alleged theft happened over an 18-year period from 1991 to 2009 in Houston County.
Records show Goldsborough has been charged with the misapplication of money, funds, credits, securities and other things of value worth in excess of $1,000 from PeoplesSouth Bank.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Schiff said he could not comment on the theft charge against Goldsborough except to say that Goldsborough has a court date on July 19 for an arraignment and a consent plea hearing. Schiff said he could not reveal how much money was stolen, but that more details would be released after the July court hearing.
Dothan attorney Wade H. Baxley, who represents Goldsborough, said his client no longer works at the bank. Baxley said he could not make any other comments about the pending charge against his client.
And though unrelated to Goldsborough’s arrest, another former PeopleSouth Bank employee is also charged with stealing from the bank.
Houston County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Karen Hunter L. Watkins, 42, of Napier Field Road, on Tuesday, on a charge of first-degree theft of property by deception. Specifically, she is charged with stealing $36,509 from the bank.
Houston County Sheriff’s Capt. Antonio Gonzalez said the charges stemmed from her making withdrawals from bank accounts that did not belong to her. He said the business reported the theft to the sheriff’s office last week.
Watkins was taken to the Houston County Jail and held on a $5,000 bond.
James E. Goldsborough, age 70, pled guilty today before United States Magistrate Judge Terry F. Moorer to a one-count felony information charging him with embezzling funds of PeoplesSouth Bank (“PSB”), in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 656, U.S. Attorney Leura G. Canary announced.

According to the plea agreement, Goldsborough worked for PSB in Dothan since 1992—first as president and, later, executive vice president. In these positions, Goldsborough had the authority to approve loans up to $25,000.
Goldsborough began embezzling in approximately 1992. He accomplished this by opening a bank account in the name of the fictitious entity. He would then approve loans to fictitious borrowers in amounts of $25,000 or less, deposit the loan proceeds in the account, and use the money either for personal expenses or to repay previously obtained fraudulent loans. Goldsborough would occasionally receive the loan proceeds in cash, falsely representing to the teller that he intended to personally deliver the funds to the borrower. Goldsborough classified the loans as commercial loans because there was no minimum monthly payment—the only requirement was that the loan be paid in full when due. When a loan would become due, Goldsborough would arrange for a new fictitious loan and use those funds to pay the loan that was due. Goldsborough also used his knowledge of PSB's security procedures to avoid certain anti-fraud measures.
At the time Goldsborough's embezzlement scheme was detected in August 2009, PSB's records show that approximately 92 fictitious loans were outstanding with a total principal balance of approximately $1,850,999.23. However, under the plea agreement, Goldsborough reserves the right to argue that the amount is less for purposes of computing his sentence and the amount of restitution.
When he is sentenced this fall by United States District Judge W. Keith Watkins, Goldsborough faces a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment, a term of supervised release of no more than five years, a fine of up to $1,000,000 (or, if greater, twice the loss to PSB), and an order of restitution. Judge Moorer released Goldsborough on a $25,000 unsecured bond pending sentencing.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew O. Schiff.
A Dothan banker who pleaded guilty to a scheme of creating fictitious loans that spanned almost 20 years was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison on Thursday.




James (Jimmy) Goldsborough was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Keith Watkins at the federal courthouse in Montgomery. He pleaded guilty to the charge of embezzlement by means of misapplication of funds by a bank officer or employee.



Goldsborough, 71, was arrested in June and accused of creating well more than 100 fake loans as president and then executive vice president of PeopleSouth Bank in Dothan. According to court records, Goldsborough’s scheme was detected in August of 2009. At that time, 92 fictitious loans remained outstanding totaling more than $1.85 million.



Prosecutors contended Goldsborough began the scheme in 1992 by opening a bank account in the name of a false company, Consumer Financial Services. He then created a fictitious owner of the account and would then approve loans to fictitious borrowers in amounts of $25,000 or less, deposit the loan proceeds in the CFS account, and use the money either for personal expenses or to repay previously obtained fraudulent loans. The scheme is said to have gone on for 17 years.



Prosecutors originally sought a sentence of 51 months, but allowed the court to take Goldsborough’s age into account during sentencing.



The maximum penalties for the embezzlement charge was not more than 30 years in prison, a fine of not more than $1 million, or not more than twice the gross gain to the defendant or gross loss to the victim and not more than five years supervised release.

Title Company Owner in Birmingham, Alabama Charged in Federal Court with Mail Fraud

Federal prosecutors have charged the owner of a Birmingham property title company with mail fraud in connection to a mortgage fraud scheme, U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance announced.

JERRY EUGENE PARKER, owner of Central Alabama Title, is charged in an information filed Thursday in U.S. District Court with two counts of mail fraud.
According to the information, PARKER, 59, of Hoover, aided and abetted others to perpetrate a fraud through the mail that assisted in the commission of a larger mortgage fraud.
“Title companies are supposed to protect lenders and property owners by making sure that the person seeking a loan on a property is the rightful owner. They are in a position to catch fraud,” Vance said. “This defendant violated the core of his position of trust by not only allowing a fraud to go unchecked, but by assisting in carrying it out. This type of financial fraud is a priority of this Justice Department. It will be prosecuted,” she said.
The information describes the fraud as follows: PARKER, while owning and operating Central Alabama Title between January 2005 and July 2007, would obtain the title of a property to be sold and apply for a refinance loan on the property. When the time came to close on the refinance loan, PARKER, or an employee of his, would change the title of the property to fraudulently reflect that the person applying for the refinance loan was the current property owner. PARKER also back-dated the title to reflect that the person seeking the refinance loan was the past and current owner of the property.
The information charges that PARKER made the changes so it would appear to the lending institution that the person applying for a refinance loan was the owner who held a legitimate equity in the property. In truth, the person applying for the loan was a new buyer who would not have been eligible to receive a refinance loan.
The maximum sentence for counts one and two is 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine for each count.
Special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Carney is prosecuting it.
This prosecution is part of President Barack Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. President Obama established the interagency task force to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. The task force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes.
Members of the public are reminded that the information contains only charges. A defendant is presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.