A former bank employee who has been indicted for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, aggravated identify theft, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud is barred from any future work in the banking industry under a consent order announced Tuesday by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed order states that Jennifer J. Woods, a former institution-affiliated party of Centennial Bank, Conway, Ark., was indicted in February by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida. Woods pleaded guilty to all counts and entered into the consent order of prohibition as a condition of her plea agreement, the Fed order states, and must pay restitution to the bank for the full amount of its loss.
The Fed said the indictment holds that Woods, while employed as a commercial loan officer, without bank authorization in about 2017 began facilitating short-term, high interest loans to an individual named Jeffrey Cannon financed by private parties, some of whom were bank customers. It said that by about February 2018, Cannon began having financial difficulties, told Woods he could not repay some of the loans because the money was tied up in business ventures, and asked Woods for additional funds to complete those ventures.
The order states that Woods and Cannon embezzled and made unauthorized withdrawals from the bank accounts and lines of credit of bank customers for Cannon’s benefit; falsely made and forged documents, used fictitious collateral, and made unauthorized use of personal identifiers to produce fraudulent loans and commit unauthorized use of lines of credit belonging to bank customers for Cannon’s benefit; and embezzled, fraudulently obtained, and attempted to fraudulently obtain approximately $3,490,474 in funds owned by and under the custody and control of the bank.
Federal Reserve Board issues enforcement action with former employee of Centennial Bank