Bank Worker Allegedly Stole $6M By Diverting Checks and Funneling Payments to Husbands' Companies
It isn’t just law firm staffers who allegedly have been stealing from their employers through fraudulent schemes and bogus record-keeping.
A former Connecticut bank employee is accused of masterminding a $6 million fraud through which two lending institutions were allegedly tricked into paying out $5 million to companies operated by her current and former husbands, reports the Meriden Record-Journal.
Susan Curtis, 49, also allegedly got her mitts on another $1.2 million by diverting payments intended for her employer, Webster Bank, to herself. Bank of America is another claimed victim.
Curtis pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Bridgeport to bank fraud and tax charges, but is contesting another bank fraud count as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering, on which she is scheduled to go to trial in April.
Her 45-year-old ex-husband, Kevin Caffrey, pleaded guilty in October to bank fraud and filing a false tax return but has not yet been sentenced.
Her current husband, Gary Stocking, 43, is expected to go to trial next month.
The newspaper says court documents explain that Curtis allegedly got around regulatory scrutiny that normally applies to large transactions by falsely claiming the companies were brokering real estate transactions. The $5 million in payments at issue reportedly were paid by Webster Bank on the mistaken understanding that it owed fees on 108 real estate matters.
