Posted on 04/17/2004 3:36:57 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Teller pleads guilty to fraud
By Jessica Lowell rep5@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE - Raymond Peter Montoya was living large.
He drove a Lincoln Navigator, a Lexus and a Volkswagen Jetta. He had put down a deposit on a Mercedes Benz at a dealership in Colorado.
The 22-year-old told his co-workers that he had a trust fund that paid him $8,000 to $10,000 a month, and that's how he paid for his cars and trips to places like Miami, Las Vegas, Arizona and Beverly Hills as well as for jewelry and designer clothes.
He told his family he had won a lottery that paid him $10,000 a month.
Either story would explain how a bank teller could spend so extravagantly.
But Montoya never won a lottery - and he wasn't a trust fund kid. Instead, federal prosecutors say, he worked out a way to steal money from a Cheyenne company that had an account at the bank where he worked.
On Monday, Montoya pleaded guilty in federal court in Casper to money laundering and bank fraud charges.
Court papers say between October 2002 and October 2003 Montoya faked 35 transactions. In each case he withdrew $10,000 from the account of Thrifty Cash Services, a check-cashing business in Cheyenne.
Montoya's sentencing is scheduled for June 18 in Casper.
Thrifty Cash Services owner Jim Ditzel didn't go to Casper on Monday to watch Montoya plead guilty. But he may go in June for the sentencing, he said. He added that he wants to see the man who stole $350,000 from him.
"It's an intense cash operation," Ditzel said of his business Thursday.
So, he added, it wasn't unusual to see transactions of $10,000 on his account, and the extra withdrawals didn't raise immediate red flags. But after nearly a year, Ditzel said, he knew something was wrong, and he reported it.
"The FBI had some questions about this," Ditzel said.
Among them was how he could not have known the money was missing.
The criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service also took part in the investigation.
The investigation showed that Montoya would solicit teller approvals at First Interstate Bank in Cheyenne, where he worked, to make each transaction appear legitimate.
Court papers also say Montoya bought a First Interstate official bank check for $25,000 that he used to buy the 2001 Lexus he drove using money he got through bank fraud.
"Bank fraud is a crime that erodes public confidence in our nation's banking system," said U.S. Attorney Matthew Mead, adding that this case is significant in its size.
"It's important to prosecute those who intentionally commit this type of crime," Mead said.
Tom Jubin, Montoya's attorney, declined comment.
Montoya is not currently in custody. He's facing a maximum of 40 years in prison, a $1.2 million fine, eight years of supervised release and $200 special assessment on both counts.
"We're hoping the court orders restitution," Mead said.
Some of that could come from selling the vehicles and recovering any bank accounts.
That's reassuring. Good help is so hard to find these days. The fact that he was stealing from a loan shark has tempered my outrage at his crime. I'm guessing that the "victim" won't make it to the sentencing either, just to avoid any surprises the feds may have for him.
It's not clear, is the bank on the hook for this one? They should be the ones getting restitution from their employee and the bank customer should have gotten back everything they deposited.
What do you reckon a bank tellers wages are today? Why work if you have an outside income of $8,000 to $10,000 a month.
I'm not a lawyer but there is a principle called "respondeat superior", meaning if your employee screws up you may be liable in civil court.
To keep the cash coming in, because he had to be burning through it as quickly as he was skimming it off. Had he started investing that money, he might have been able to pull off the fraud by having an apparently legit reason to be living well above a bank teller's means.
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