College-aged people recruited for conspiracy
Three Providence men have pleaded guilty to federal bank fraud charges in a half-million-dollar check fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Monday. About twelve defendants face state charges for their alleged roles in the scheme.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
Joseph D’Anna, Charles Lambert and Anthony Dimeo entered their guilty pleas in U.S. District Court in Providence. D’Anna pleaded on March 31; Lambert and Dimeo entered their pleas on April 7.
At the hearings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee H. Vilker said the government could prove that the men engaged in a nine-month-long check fraud conspiracy that netted about $566,000 for them and their co-conspirators.
The three men recruited college-aged individuals to deposit worthless checks in accounts at Citizens Bank. On the morning after the deposit, one of the conspirators would escort the account holder to three different Citizens branches, and a check would be negotiated for cash at each branch.
The conspirators were able to obtain up to three times the purported value of the deposited check before Citizens could determine that the deposit was worthless.
After the withdrawals were made, the individual whose account was used was typically paid $1,500, Lambert and D’Anna each kept $1,500, and Dimeo kept the remainder of the withdrawals, typically between $9,000 and $10,000.
On Nov. 2, D’Anna, acting on Dimeo’s instructions, wrote a check for $4,900 and deposited it in a Citizens account in the name of a college-aged individual whom they’d recruited. Citizens’ surveillance tapes show a college-aged individual negotiating checks for cash at three different branches on the morning of Nov. 3 and bank records indicate a loss of $14,075 from those checks, which were returned for insufficient funds.
Later that day, U.S. Secret Service agents monitored D’Anna, Lambert and Dimeo dividing up the proceeds of that morning’s fraudulent withdrawals.
The scheme was perpetrated 53 times between March and November 2005.
D’Anna, Lambert and Dimeo pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. All three are free on bond pending sentencing. D’Anna is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16; Dimeo and Lambert on June 30. The maximum penalty for conspiracy to commit bank fraud is 30 years in prison and a fine of $1 million or twice the amount gained through the fraud.
The U.S. Secret Service, the R.I. State Police, Providence Police and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated the check scheme.
