Former Mansfield Bank Manager Sentenced to More Than Four Years in Prison, Ordered to Pay More Than $2 Million

A Mansfield man was sentenced to more than four years in prison and ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution after previously being found guilty of bank embezzlement, tax charges, and bank fraud, said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

Kevin J. Moore, age 37, was sentenced by United States District Court Judge Christopher Boyko to 51 months’ incarceration. Moore previously pleaded guilty to six counts of a criminal information.

The first count charged that from August 2008 to November 2010, Moore, while he was the manager of Huntington National Bank (HNB), in Mansfield, Ohio, embezzled approximately $1.7 million from HNB. Moore was also charged in three other counts with tax evasion in failing to report and pay taxes on the monies he had embezzled and used for his own personal benefit.

In addition, Moore was charged in another count with wire fraud for defrauding an individual of more than $360,000 in an phony investment scheme. Moore was also charged with bank fraud for opening lines of credit in Randy Meister’s name and fraudulently drawing on those lines while Moore was the manager of the Mansfield, Ohio branch of KeyBank from the fall of 2007 to the spring of 2008.

Meister pleaded guilty to misprison of a felony in concealing this bank fraud from investigator.

The information’s count one, charging embezzlement from Huntington National Bank, alleged that Moore met with bank customers who wanted to open or renew a CD or annuity account and would embezzle their money and provide these customers with a print-out that he had manufactured that falsely reflected the amount of the invested funds and earnings rate, when, in fact, the defendant had stolen these funds and there was no investment.

When CDs would come up for renewal, Moore would contact the CD customers and entice those customers to renew their CDs by offering them an inflated interest rate even though the defendant had no authority from the bank to offer such rates, and, in fact, no interest rates were to be paid on these CD investments since the defendant had stolen these funds. When a customer wanted to cash out his or her CD where defendant had stolen the funds, Moore would “flip” money from another CD customer’s account to be able to cash out that account, according to court records.

The information charged that Moore would withdraw all the CD and annuity funds he had stolen in the form of cash by falsely telling bank tellers the customers were waiting in his office to pick up these funds. In fact, according to the information, this was only a ruse perpetrated by Moore to allow him to steal, and use for his own personal benefit, the cash he had received from the tellers.

The information charged that, from on or about August 2008 to on or about November 2010, Moore stole approximately $1.7 million from HNB and its CD and annuity customers. In connection with this embezzlement scheme, the information also charged Moore with three counts of tax violations for evading his taxes for calendar years 2008, 2009, and 2010, resulting in a tax due and owing of more than $512,000. This does not include any penalties or interest owed to the I.R.S., which is subject to assessment in civil or administrative proceeding.

The information also charged that Moore committed wire fraud by defrauding an investor from 2004 through 2008 of more than $360,000. The information charged that Moore approached R.R., who was a member of the church where defendant’s father was the pastor and where defendant was an assistant pastor, and informed R.R. that he and his family was actively involved in making investments, including “day trading” (buying and selling securities within a short period of time, usually within a day, in order to secure a quick profit by any increase in trading price during that short period of time; to secure any kind of significant profit, it usually requires multitudes of day trades with securities experiencing “up ticks” in their daily trading prices).

Moore represented to R.R. that R.R. could invest $250,000 a four-year trading program and receive a return of $5,000 per month for 48 months, at which time R.R. would receive the return of his original $250,000 investment. On or about August 13, 2004, R.R. cashed out his 401K pension fund and gave Moore a check for $250,000 to invest in the above-mentioned four-year trading program, according to court documents.

On or about November 24, 2004, Moore, upon finding out R.R. owned stock, approached R.R. and convinced him to sell his stock and invest an additional $118,000, again promising a substantial return on this investment. In fact, there was no investment and the defendant used these funds for his own personal use and benefit. When R.R. requested payment from Moore, he would attempt to lull R.R. into a false sense of security in order to prevent R.R. from complaining to law enforcement officials, by paying him small amounts of money over a period of time and by telling R.R. false stories, including false statements that Moore was associated with individuals who were being murdered by organized crime criminals; that Moore and his family were in danger; and that Moore was already working with law enforcement in this organized crime case, according to court records.

In a separate bank fraud charge, the information alleged that, while Moore was the manager of KeyBank in Mansfield, Ohio, Moore had made fraudulent deposits into credit lines established at KeyBank in Meister’s name. Initially, Meister was unaware that Moore had opened these lines of credit under his name. Meister later assisted Moore in cashing out advances on the lines of credit prior to Key Bank’s discovery of allegedly false deposits. Meister was charged with misprison of a felony for allowing his name and real property to be used to establish the relevant bank accounts, assisting Moore in obtaining cash from fraudulent withdrawals from Meister’s lines of credit, and concealing Moore’s bank fraud from the proper authorities.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Patton and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian H. Stickan after an investigation by the Mansfield Resident Agency of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, in Cleveland, Ohio.