Grand jury: Kentucky bank teller faked transactions, stole more than $32,000
A former employee of a bank in Montgomery County abused her position as head teller to steal $32,800, a federal grand jury has charged.
Jamie Leanne Hightower was indicted Thursday on charges of bank fraud and identity theft.
The indictment says that when the alleged thefts occurred in 2019, Hightower was head teller and vault teller at the Community Trust Bank in Mt. Sterling.
The indictment alleges that Hightower used various methods to take money, including altering documentation on customer deposits.
Examples cited included taking cash from another teller and falsely representing what she did with it; taking money from a Federal Reserve shipment, an armored-car shipment and the vault and lying about it; and taking money from customers’ accounts by fabricating transactions.
She illegally used a customer’s name and bank number, the indictment says.
In one case, she cashed a check in her husband’s name but kept the check and deposited it into her account “in order to recover twice the amount of funds authorized,” the indictment says.
Hightower violated bank policy, created false entries in records and used multiple teller drawers to disguise the scheme, the indictment charges.
The bank fraud charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and the identity theft charge carries a mandatory two-year sentence.
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 9:33 AM.
