tl;dr
A US banker, Megan Lea Dougherty, has pleaded guilty to stealing $2.393 million from over a dozen Exchange Bank of Missouri customer accounts over a 15-year period. She exploited weaknesses in the bank's internal controls, targeting customers who trusted her and transferring small amounts of money i...
A U.S. banker, Megan Lea Dougherty, has pleaded guilty to stealing $2.393 million from over a dozen Exchange Bank of Missouri customer accounts over a 15-year period. She exploited weaknesses in the bank's internal controls, targeting customers who trusted her and transferring small amounts of money into her own accounts.
Dougherty used various tactics to avoid detection, including shifting stolen funds to family members' accounts and falsifying transfer descriptions. She faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and must forfeit her stake in nine parcels of land in Missouri, along with a $2.393 million money judgment.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri says 36-year-old Megan Lea Dougherty has pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud for looting $2.393 million from over a dozen Exchange Bank of Missouri customer accounts.
Targeting customers who knew and trusted her, Dougherty transferred small amounts of money from their accounts into her savings account and later on, to her checking account. Prosecutors also say Dougherty employed multiple strategies to avoid detection. She shifted some of the stolen funds to the checking accounts of family members. She also kept a rotation of customer accounts to steal from and would take money from one account to reimburse another.
Records reveal that over a dozen other customers were also victims of Dougherty’s theft, but those accounts were reimbursed when she moved onto victimizing new accounts. Dougherty is now facing a maximum sentence of 30 years behind bars without parole. She must also forfeit her stake in nine parcels of land in Howard County, Missouri to the government along with a money judgment of $2.393 million.