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A bank employee quietly drained $280,000 from a US bank, hoping for a clean getaway with the hoard of cash, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle has sentenced Venice, Florida resident Jennifer Lamanna to 15 months in federal prison after she pleaded guilty to the heist.
According to the DOJ, Lamanna worked inside an FDIC-insured bank and began siphoning cash directly from the vault, moving $280,000 into an account she controlled.
To mask the theft, she made a series of large withdrawals and matching deposits from a customer account.
To make the fake transactions look legitimate, prosecutors say Lamanna also filed fictitious Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs).
During an investigation on June 8th, 2023, Lamanna lied to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), submitting a CTR stating that a bank customer had deposited $160,100 into his account. Prosecutors say Lamanna knew that the transaction never took place.
In September of this year, ex-PNC bank teller Rhodesia Jones was accused of embezzling $80,000 from customer accounts. She was charged with one count of embezzlement-financial institutions and two counts of tax-related offenses, failure to file, false return or payment.
