Berwick Bank Employee Charged with Stealing Money
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 28, 2009 |
United States Attorney Dennis C. Pfannenschmidt today announced the return of a one-count felony indictment charging Mary M. Knecht with theft, embezzlement, and misapplication by a bank employee. The indictment alleges that Knecht embezzled approximately $750,000 from First Keystone National Bank of Berwick, Pennsylvania, where she worked as an accounting administrator.
According to the indictment, Knecht began stealing from First Keystone in or around January 1992, through December 2009. The indictment alleges that Knecht fraudulently diverted and transferred funds from the bank’s internal general ledger accounts to personal First Keystone accounts that she controlled, using fraudulent bank cashier’s checks, deposit slips, debit and credit memoranda, and other documents to carry out and cover-up the thefts.
Knecht, age 54, presently resides in Berwick, Pennsylvania. She faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years in prison and a maximum fine of $1,000,000.
U.S. Attorney Pfannenschmidt stated that the case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and that prosecution of this matter has been assigned to Assistant United States Attorney George J. Rocktashel.
