A bank official at a New Jersey TD Bank has admitted to embezzling more than $600,000 from inactive customer accounts, according the Department of Justice.
Telisha Trent, 43, of Williamstown, New Jersey, pleaded guilty on one count of bank fraud and one count of money laundering. She used the funds to pay for luxury cars, vacations, house repairs, items for her children, and more.
According to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, Trent was a financial services representative for TD Bank in Sewell, and she used her position to identify inactive checking and savings accounts that were held mainly by elderly customers. Court records say she transferred some of the funds into an account or received a cashier’s check for the amount issued in her name “in order to hide her fraud,” the Department of Justice said in a release.
“Trent would research the account holder in order to assess the risk of whether the account holder would notice that the funds in the account were removed,” the news release stated.
After she transferred the funds to several accounts she owned, she closed down the dormant accounts to “avoid detection.” In all, she stole $608,482 from eight accounts belonging to customers from New Jersey, Connecticut, and Ohio over a 12-month period, the report said.
After TD Bank officials discovered her activity, they reimbursed the victims, the Justice Department added.
She faces a maximum of 40 years in prison and a fine of $1.25 million. She will be sentenced Nov. 7.
