Nov. 6 (UPI) — A former New York bank manager was sentenced to 13 months in prison for allegedly stealing more than $200,000 from a now-deceased bank customer.
James Gomes, 43, of New York, used his position as a branch manager of an “international financial institution” to illegally access the bank account of a customer in order to embezzle roughly $208,938.68 from a client who is now dead, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
But the government did not reveal which financial institution was involved or who the unidentified victim was.
In addition to his yearlong stay in jail, Gomes was sentenced to three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay the same amount he allegedly stole in both restitution and forfeiture of criminal proceeds for abusing his bank position.
The investigation, lead by the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery section of DOJ’s criminal division, was implemented by the IRS Criminal Investigation unit and the FDIC’s Office of Inspector General, with assistance from the local Morristown Police Department.
According to the Justice Department, Gomes allegedly linked his personal phone number to the customer’s accounts without authorization to enroll the client’s accounts in the bank’s online services.
It’s further alleged Gomes created a fake email address to cover his tracks and that it contained the customer’s name, which the federal government says he used to “engage in fictitious conversations with his own official bank email address to make it appear that the customer was communicating with him,” DOJ added.
He supposedly committed the fraudulent transactions from January to April 2020, even after the bank client’s April 5, 2020, death, according to legal documents and statements made in court.
In March and April of that year, Gomes “fraudulently transferred the customer’s funds” to his own personal bank and investment accounts at other banking institutions.
The MLARS Bank Integrity Unit has so far garnered penalties totaling more than $25 billion.
It investigates and prosecutes banks and other financial institutions — including its officers, managers and employees — whose actions “threaten the integrity of the individual institution or the wider financial system,” the department said.
The Justice Department added that since 2010, its Bank Integrity Unit has prosecuted a series of financial institutions for alleged Bank Secrecy Act violations, money laundering, sanctions and for various other laws or crimes.
