Former Austin Bank Employee Sentenced to Federal Prison for Stealing over One Million Dollars from

[TexasTowelie]

Former Austin Bank Employee Sentenced to Federal Prison for Stealing over One Million Dollars from Customer


In Austin today, a federal judge sentenced 40–year-old former Austin Capital One bank employee Paola Gallego of Round Rock, TX, to five years in federal prison for stealing over $1 million from a bank customer, announced U.S. Attorney John F. Bash, FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs, San Antonio Division, and Special Agent in Charge Laurie L. Younger, FDIC Office of Inspector General (FDIC OIG), Dallas Region.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ordered Gallego to pay a monetary judgment forfeiture in the amount of $1.2 Million; pay $1,403,979.13 in restitution to Capital One Bank (which had reimbursed the victims for their losses); and, be placed on supervised release for a period of four years after completing her prison term. Gallego remains on a $1 million bond pending Bureau of Prisons notification as to when and where to report to begin her prison sentence.

On May 9, 2019, Gallego pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and agreed to liquidate and remit certain assets and properties to be applied towards restitution.

Court records and testimony show that beginning in April 2014, Gallego began servicing the Capital One accounts of an elderly Austin couple. Gallego told one of her victims that if the spouse should die, another family member could take control of the money in their bank account—approximately $4.4 million. In September 2016, the victim took $400,000 and opened up an account at Wells Fargo Bank with Gallego’s assistance. Over the next two weeks, Gallego spent $94,779.13 on personal and family expenditures including a $50,000 wire transfer to Bancolombia on September 28, 2016, and a $20,586.81 online credit card payment to Chase Bank to an account in the name of her mother. Wells Fargo closed that account on suspicions of elder abuse.

Read more: https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdtx/pr/former-austin-bank-employee-sentenced-federal-prison-stealing-over-one-million-dollars