CMBG3 is thrilled to announce another success in a general litigation matter involving white collar crimes. Team members Attorney Michael Simons, Attorney Jeniffer A.P. Carson and Paralegal Madison Sarka worked on this case to its successful resolution.

Our client, a small professional dental practice, discovered that a long tenured office manager had been unlawfully depositing business checks payable to the practice into her personal account, amounting to several hundred thousand dollars, while simultaneously doctoring the books to hide her actions.  The employee was close friends with several tellers at the bank, who allowed this practice to continue unchecked for years.

Our representation of the practice was complicated by the fact that on the eve of her scheduled criminal trial for fraud, the employee (who had pled not guilty) committed suicide, thereby preventing us from obtaining critical testimony to establish the link between her and the bank employees.  Further, the FDIC allows banks to self-regulate when it comes to the deposit of business checks into personal accounts.

However, through investigation and critical interviews with current and former bank employees, CMBG3 was able to establish that the bank (a) was aware of the risks of allowing this practice to occur; (b) knew that it was not common practice to allow such deposits to be made; (c) did not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent such deposits; (d) knew that proper procedure would have been for the bank to obtain a written consent from the owner of the business prior to allowing such deposits; and (e) admittedly did not follow this procedure or enact any other safety precautions to prevent this activity because it claimed the branch was ”too busy”.  Further, additional fact investigation uncovered that this was the second time that the bank had allowed unauthorized deposits to be made into unrelated personal accounts, establishing actual knowledge of the risk and willful disregard for proper banking practice.

As a result of our efforts, we were able to resolve this case for 100% of the legally recoverable losses incurred by our client.