A former executive at the seventh-largest bank in the US just admitted to taking tens of thousands of dollars from a deceased customer’s account.
Former PNC bank manager Lamont Hankins has pleaded guilty to stealing $60,181 from a customer who died years ago, reports Cleveland.com.
Hankins started stealing the funds in late 2021, about six years after the death of the victim, while serving as the branch manager of PNC Bank’s Harvard-Lee branch.
The victim opened the account in June of 1971 and died on September 22nd, 2015.
According to the report, Hankins’ position gave him broad access to clients’ information and accounts, and he lied to PNC Bank employees and fabricated documents to keep the scheme moving.
On September 8th of 2021, Hankins falsely claimed that he had spoken with the account owner about reactivating her dormant account. Hankins went on to change the address contained in the database before issuing two debit cards linked to the deceased’s account.
Hankins initiated 193 transactions from the account, including money transfers and purchases directly taken from the account, including an airline ticket.
While making a transfer from the account in December of 2021, Hankins also lied to a PNC Bank teller and said the deceased account owner was his aunt. The former branch manager also told the same teller that he had opened a bank account in the woman’s name to conceal money from his wife.
Hankins is set to be sentenced in February of 2025. He faces a potential sentence of 16 months in prison. Hankins has also consented to repaying the full amount he stole.
PNC Bank, which currently ranks seventh by total assets per Federal Reserve data, has about $559.7 billion in consolidated assets.
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