Clinton Woman Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud and Tax Evasion

JACKSON, MS—Barbara Cummings, 60, of Clinton, pled guilty today in U.S. District Court to bank fraud and tax evasion, announced U.S. Attorney Gregory K. Davis, FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel McMullen and IRS-Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Gabriel Grchen. A federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment against Cummings on January 24, 2013, charging her with one count of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and three counts of tax evasion.

Cummings will be sentenced by U.S. District Court Senior Judge David C. Bramlette, III on January 14, 2013, at 10:30 a.m. The bank fraud charge carries a maximum of 30 years in prison, a $1,000,000 fine, and up to five years of supervised release. The tax evasion charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and up to three years of supervised release.

From March 2007 through March 2009, Barbara Cummings, was employed as the office manager at Mid-South Machinery in Jackson. During her employment, she systematically forged the signatures of the owners of Mid-South Machinery on numerous checks drawn on Mid-South Machinery’s accounts at First Commercial Bank, making such forged checks payable to herself and her husband and cashing, and depositing such funds into her personal bank account. Cummings also altered the dollar amounts written on transaction tickets from Mid-South’s Regions Bank account that were made payable to “Petty Cash,” or she would fraudulently create a transaction ticket, making it payable to “Barbara Cummings,” and keep some or all of the money. When interviewed by agents of the FBI and IRS, Cummings admitted to embezzling the funds from Mid-South by defrauding the banks. During 2008, she prepared her own income tax return, where she intentionally failed to report over $120,000 in income she had received that year through her fraudulent scheme in order to pay less tax on her income.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Davis praised the efforts of special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst is prosecuting the case.