Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office has subpoenaed the president of a Leominster-based bank in the case of a Marlboro business accused of operating a billion-dollar pyramid scheme.

John F. Merrill, president of Fidelity Bank, is expected to give testimony sometime next week to the state securities division in connection with its investigation of TelexFree, said Brian McNiff, spokesman for Secretary Galvin.

In essence, TelexFree had a great deal of money deposited at Fidelity Bank and that is what the division plans to question Merrill about, McNiff said.

Meanwhile, James M. Merrill, the co-owner of TelexFree and brother of the aforementioned Merrill, was ordered to be held in custody without bail by a federal judge in Worcester earlier this week, the Boston Globe reported.

The civil complaint against TelexFree accuses the company of violating the Uniform Securities Act and specifically of targeting the Brazilian-American community in a billion-dollar pyramid and Ponzi scheme.

According to the complaint, from 2002 onward, TelexFree lured participants into opening accounts that would supposedly pay them generous returns in exchange for clicking on advertisements to promote the business.

The Globe reported that Carlos Wanzeler, James Merrill’s business partner in TelexFree, had fled the country for Brazil and that his wife had also tried to flee, but was arrested at an airport in New York.

Email: lalix@thewarrengroup.com