Bank embezzler gets 21-month sentence

11/18/2005

A former bank manager who was convicted of stealing funds from customer accounts of her employers has been sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Darlene C. Mayes, formerly of Steeple Chase Circle, was sentenced this week in U.S. District Court in Toledo by Judge David Katz. She had pleaded guilty June 22 to two counts of embezzlement.

Mayes, who now lives in Cleveland, withdrew $10,086 from accounts of customers at Fifth Third's Westgate branch, where she was employed as a manager. She was terminated from the bank in January, 2004, after the funds were discovered missing.

She also took $56,435 from accounts while working for her previous employer, KeyBank in Bexley, Ohio, where she worked as a manager from September, 2001, until May, 2003.

While under investigation for the thefts, authorities said she embezzled $30,161 from a J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank branch in Michigan, but she was not prosecuted.

Judge Katz ordered Mayes to makes restitution to all three banks.