HUSBAND OF FORMER EMPLOYEE OF NEW JERSEY BANK SENTENCED TO 27 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR STEALING CLIENT INFORMATION AND FUNDS
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that two defendants have been sentenced to prison by U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods in connection with a scheme to steal client information and funds from a bank. SECONEY BROWN and ANTOINETTE MITCHELL-BROWN, who are married, previously pled guilty to participating in a conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “Antoinette Mitchell-Brown stole client information from a bank at which she was employed and, with the help of her husband, Seconey Brown, used that information in an attempt to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the bank customers. Now, they have been sentenced to prison.”
According to the allegations in the Indictment filed in connection with this case, other filings in Manhattan federal court, and statements made at the sentencing hearings in this case:
From September 2016 until December 2016, BROWN and MITCHELL-BROWN engaged in a scheme to fraudulently obtain funds from more than 25 accounts at Bank-1, at which MITCHELL-BROWN was then employed. In furtherance of the scheme, MITCHELL-BROWN stole victims’ bank account information from her employer and used that information to, among other things, write checks for thousands of dollars from victims’ accounts and initiate wire transfers from victims’ accounts to bank accounts controlled by members of the scheme. BROWN, among other things, paid members of the scheme or otherwise induced other individuals (some of whom provided unwitting assistance) to cash or deposit the fraudulent checks from MITCHELL-BROWN, and to provide the proceeds to BROWN, or, at BROWN’s direction, other individuals. In total, the defendants’ scheme fraudulently obtained almost $100,000 and attempted to obtain at least an additional $660,000.
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In addition to the prison term, BROWN, 26, of East Orange, New Jersey, was sentenced to 2 years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay $93,123.14 in restitution.
MITCHELL-BROWN, 42, of East Orange, New Jersey, was sentenced by Judge Woods on April 4, 2019, to 366 days in prison and two years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay $93,123.14 in restitution.
Mr. Berman praised the outstanding investigative work of the FDIC Office of Inspector General and the United States Postal Inspection Service. Mr. Berman also thanked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the East Orange Police Department for their assistance in the investigation.
This case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Louis A. Pellegrino and Robert B. Sobelman are in charge of the prosecution.
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