$2,393,288 Drained From Customers’ Bank Accounts As Insider Falsifies Records, Transfers Funds to Herself and Family: US Department of Justice

A US banker has admitted to stealing millions of dollars from customers’ accounts in a 15 year-long scheme.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri says 36-year-old Megan Lea Dougherty has pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud for looting $2.393 million from over a dozen Exchange Bank of Missouri customer accounts.

Prosecutors say Dougherty drained the accounts from January 1st, 2009 to October 17th, 2023 after discovering a weakness in her employer’s internal controls.

Targeting customers who knew and trusted her, Dougherty transferred small amounts of money from their accounts into her savings account and later on, to her checking account.

Prosecutors also say Dougherty employed multiple strategies to avoid detection.

She shifted some of the stolen funds to the checking accounts of family members. She also kept a rotation of customer accounts to steal from and would take money from one account to reimburse another. To keep her theft under wraps, Dougherty faked the descriptions of the transfers in the bank’s computer systems.

“At the time that Exchange Bank of Missouri discovered the theft, Dougherty was actively stealing from seven different bank customers, some of whom had multiple accounts affected. Records reveal that over a dozen other customers were also victims of Dougherty’s theft, but those accounts were reimbursed when she moved onto victimizing new accounts.”

Dougherty is now facing a maximum sentence of 30 years behind bars without parole. She must also forfeit her stake in nine parcels of land in Howard County, Missouri to the government along with a money judgment of $2.393 million.

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