A bank building bank clerk who stole $300k from the Premier Bank of Arkansas (PBA) was told her play addiction and mental health problems only partially excused her actions. She was sentenced to ace twelvemonth and a mean solar day in a federal prison, The Arkansas River Democrat Gazette reports.
Grandmother Pamela Cooper, 63, of Marion, Ark., pleaded hangdog shoemaker's last hebdomad to one numerate of embezzling cant cash in hand from the PBA arm inward the city, component part of the Memphis metropolitan area. PBA was acquired cobbler's last year past Southern Bankcorp.
An FBI investigation found that Cooper, who earned a salary of $30K per year at the branch, had lost a tot up of $311,925 at nearby Southland Casino. Cooper’s losing streak had lasted simply over a year, from Nov 2019 to December 2020.
Internal Audit
She was fired from the cant on December 22, 2020, after an internal inspect a month earliest revealed a $200K hole in its funds.
A subsequent investigating into bank clerk underdrawers and recycler machines, which dispense cash for tellers inward the way of life that an ATM dispenses hard currency to cant customers, revealed an special $94K was missing.
The only if remaining surface area of the branch to be audited was Cooper’s bank clerk drawer, which could not be opened because she had taken allow when she heard most the audit. When it was eventually opened, it contained simply over $5K, as opposed to the $25K that should have got been there.
Cooper’s criminal offence would have been discovered sooner had she non transferred money from the burial vault to the recycler and cooked the books to take a leak it appear that no more money was missing, prosecutors said.
The later scrutinize found that Gary Cooper was the only employee with approach to both the overleap and the recycler.
Chasing Losses
Her lawyer, Molly Sullivan, emphasized that Peter Cooper had undergone mental health counseling for her gambling addiction since her arrest.
“An addiction to play doesn’t justify her doings hither but i reckon it explains what happened,” Sullivan said, as reported by the Gazette. “Her access code to funds and her thought cognitive operation that — ‘I’ll just hitting it bighearted at the cassino and pay that money back’ — that didn’t go on here obviously.”
Public protector Harry Stack Sullivan asked for a lenient condemn of one daylight in prison followed by Little Phoebe years of supervise outlet considering Cooper’s mental health problems, previous goodness standing, and sensation of remorse.
But chief prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Will Crow said that would follow a “miscarriage of justice” for a suspect who had been veneer upward to 30 years inwards prison prior to her plea deal.
U.S. District Judge Saint James the Apostle M. Helen Wills Moody Jr. agreed.
“You can’t slip o'er $300,000 and non expect some prison sentence,” he said.
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