Bank Teller Admits to Stealing $255,000 From 80-Year-Old Clients, Triggering Unauthorized ATM Withdrawals

A former bank teller in Maryland has pleaded guilty to stealing $255,000 from his employer’s clients – mostly octogenarians.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland says 27-year-old Mountee Brown has pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection in a scheme to steal funds from customers at a Clinton, Maryland, bank.

Prosecutors outlined a web of deceptive acts by Brown and at least two co-conspirators against five victims, four of whom were over 80 years old.

Brown’s guilty plea revealed that he used his position as a bank teller to gain access to the victims’ accounts and, using co-conspirators to “pose” as the victims walking into the bank, make at least 26 unauthorized withdrawals.

Brown verified the transactions and falsely reported that they were done by “known clients.”

Says the prosecutors,

“The co-conspirators began carrying out the scheme on October 21, 2022, when Co-conspirator #1 entered Bank A and approached Brown at his designated teller station. Brown knew that Co-conspirator #1 was not Victim #1. But Brown and Co-conspirator #1 conducted a $10,000 cash withdrawal from Victim #1’s account without Victim #1’s knowledge or consent.

Brown conducted the cash withdrawal by falsely documenting that he verified the customer, the customer was a ‘known client,’ and that the customer was known by Brown’s supervisor. Co-conspirator #1 falsely signed the withdrawal ticket as Victim #1.”

According to the DOJ, Brown repeated the same scheme multiple times, and made cash deposits of approximately  $30,200 into his personal account at another financial institution, and he and his co-conspirators made off with at least $255,000.

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