$75k civil money penalty over employee’s Ponzi scheme involvement eyed in recent OCC orders

A notice of charges for a prohibition and assessment of a $75,000 civil money penalty for a former bank employee who allegedly aided a Ponzi scheme is among the nine enforcement orders released Thursday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

In the notice dated March 12, the OCC states that Derline Cunningham, a former retail branch manager and officer of Citizens Bank, N.A., Providence, R.I., provided “material assistance” to two customers who ran an investment-based Ponzi scheme that defrauded more than 1,000 investors of more than $115 million. The notice states that a hearing will be held before an administrative law judge.

Under a March 30 cease-and-desist order, the agency said that Transact Bank, National Association Denver, Colo., has failed to fully comply with a 2016 formal agreement addressing unsafe and unsound practices and, among other things, has not complied with a 2019 supervisory condition to adhere to a capital commitment. It lays out a series of actions required to address these deficiencies and labels the bank, as a result of this order, as being in “troubled condition.”

OCC Enforcement Actions and Terminations