Charges of check fraud, misappropriation of customer funds, and misapplication of funds and conflicts of interest have led to the separate prohibitions of three former employees of banks and financial companies, the Federal Reserve said Friday.
The three workers, and the companies they worked for, are: Charles Alan Wright, formerly of Northstar Bank, Bad Axe, Mich.; Stephanie K. Hudders, formerly of American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc., New York, N.Y.; and Elvisha White, formerly of Regions Bank, Birmingham, Ala.
All three signed consent prohibition orders.
White was charged with check fraud. According to the Fed, she was a “relationship banker” at the Hickory Ridge Branch of Regions Bank in Memphis, Tenn. She was terminated in November 2024. The Fed asserted that she “knowingly cashed counterfeit or fraudulent checks in return for personal benefits, including cash, as part of a broader check-fraud ring that caused more than $396,000 in losses to the Bank.”
Wright was charged with misappropriation of customer funds. The Fed said that on Oct. 23, 2023, he pleaded guilty in Michigan state court to one count of embezzling and one count of false pretenses. As part of the plea, the Fed said, he admitted that as a commercial loan officer at the bank between 2021 to 2022, he allegedly fraudulently obtained money from bank customers’ lines of credit and cashed customers’ payment checks on those loans for his personal benefit. In 2024, he was convicted of both offenses, sentenced to imprisonment and ordered to pay approximately $327,958 in restitution to the bank.
Hudders was charged with misapplication of funds and conflicts of interest. The agency said she worked as a senior business development manager in American Express Travel’s (Amex) merchant services department for the Caribbean market until she was terminated on Feb. 22, 2023. The Fed alleged that from July 2020 to Sept. 2022, she caused Amex to make at least $165,040 in payments to a third-party external sales agency used to recruit new Amex-accepting merchants. However, that agency allegedly employed a relative of hers, the Fed said, and that Hudders allegedly had an undisclosed interest in sales agency, in violation of Amex policies. The Fed said her conduct caused Amex a financial loss, although no dollar amount was provided.
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