A former personal banker at Bank of America was sentenced yesterday to serve three to five years in state prison for stealing more than $2.1 million from 31 investors and customers, Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office said.
Elaina Patterson, 54, of Wilimington, pleaded guilty to 15 charges of larceny over $250 from a person over 60 and 16 counts of larceny over $250 on Monday in Middlesex Superior Court.
"This defendant’s gross violation of trust negatively impacted more than 30 victims, many of whom were her friends and family, and others who were long-time and often elderly customers," Coakley said in a statement. "Through today’s state prison sentence, she is being held accountable for her deceitful and illegal actions."
After Patterson entered her plea, Superior Court Judge Peter Lauriat sentenced her to serve three to five years in state prison with 10 years of probation to serve upon her release. Lauriat also prohibited her from working in financial services as a condition of her probation.
Between July 1999 and September 2011, Patterson persuaded family and friends to invest their money in what she characterized as high-interest accounts when she worked as a personal banker at a Bank of America branch in Reading. She convinced 15 people to invest nearly $4.5 million in the scheme.
Patterson then issued fake certificate of deposit receipts and Form 1099s on bank forms so as to appear legitimate. In several instances, she set up accounts in investors’ names without their knowledge, used her own address on the accounts, deposited investors’ funds into those accounts and used that money to fund payments to other investors – and to herself.
Patterson also began stealing money from customers’ accounts, many of them elderly, to cover up previous theft. In one case, she stole more than $95,000 from a 90-year-old customer by forging his signature on withdrawal slips. In another instance, she stole $220,000 from a 90-year-old woman’s certificate of deposit account – again by forging her signature. And in a third instance, she stole more than $300,000 across 10 separate withdrawals from another customer’s account.
In total, Patterson stole nearly $1.5 million from 16 different customers by forging signatures on withdrawal slips. She used $400,000 to repay some of her previous victims in the scheme and the majority of that balance to fund "interest payments" to her "investors."
Investigators ultimately uncovered a total of approximately $6 million in fraudulent transactions. Patterson made $3.8 million in payments back to customers and investors and left the net theft at around $2.1 million.
A restitution hearing will be scheduled and held at a later date.
