Former Bank Employee Sentenced to 41-Month Prison Term for Embezzling More Than $2 Million
Defendant was a Private Banking Associate, Stole from Client Accounts
| U.S. Attorney’s Office September 05, 2013 |
WASHINGTON—Jonathan Weir, 45, a former bank employee, was sentenced today to 41 months in prison on a federal mail fraud charge stemming from his embezzlement of more than $2 million from client accounts, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr. and Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Weir, of Laurel, Maryland, pled guilty in May 2013 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was sentenced by the Honorable Rudolph Contreras. The judge also ordered Weir to pay $2,166,500 in restitution and forfeit $1,469,510 in a money judgment. Upon completion of his prison term, Weir will be placed on three years of supervised release, and, during that time, he must perform 200 hours of community service.
According to the statement of offense signed by the defendant at the plea hearing and agreements made at the sentencing hearing, from 1992 to 2012, Weir was employed at a bank as a private banking associate, assisting with the management of high net-worth clients and their bank accounts. At least from 2000 to 2012, Weir worked with various clients, among them a married couple with accounts at the bank where Weir worked.
From May 2005 to August 2012, Weir withdrew a total of $2,166,500 from bank accounts belonging to the married couple without their permission or authority. Primarily, Weir would debit the clients’ accounts and issue a cashier’s check to one of three individuals, who would ordinarily deposit the money and then return a portion of the money to Weir. On occasion, Weir took cash or money orders, in addition to the cashier’s checks.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen and Assistant Director in Charge Parlave commended the work of the special agents from the FBI’s Washington Field Office who investigated the case. They also acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including: Paralegal Specialist Donna Galindo, Assistant U.S. Attorney Arvind K. Lal of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Virginia Cheatham, who prosecuted the case.