Bank Employee Must Repay $1.6 Million Woman’s Fraud Plot So Complex It Took Auditor 2 Years To Tally

A former Washington Mutual Bank account representative with a taste for fine jewelry has been sentenced to 27 months in prison and payment of more than $1.6 million in restitution for bank fraud.

Angela Medley, 44, of Des Moines, who specialized in opening and renewing certificates of deposit at the bank’s White Center branch, pleaded guilty earlier to embezzlement from 1986 to 1994. She was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein.

U.S. Attorney Kate Pflaumer said it was one of the largest bank embezzlement cases in state history.

Medley’s job gave her access to customer records with authorization to handle cash transactions, sign and issue bank checks and approve wire transfers.

She manipulated certificates of deposit and disguised her transactions in fake paperwork so complex that it took a top bank auditor more than two years to tally the losses, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Wales said.

FBI agent Mark Meinecke said she often took money from one CD account and covered the deficit with funds from another CD account.

In one case, a bank customer asked Medley on Sept. 16, 1987, to reinvest the funds from a $100,000 CD that had matured in another CD. Government lawyers said she provided documentation indicating a new CD had been purchased but left no records on any of the bank’s books and kept the money for herself.

Customers whose funds Medley embezzled received annual statements that falsely indicated interest earned on their deposits. They did not lose any money because the bank’s accounts are federally insured.

The scheme collapsed on Dec. 7, 1994, when a bank customer complained that a receipt for the renewal of a CD was short $5,500. Medley was fired two weeks later and was arrested by FBI agents.

Medley admitted buying more than $465,000 in jewelry from Ben Bridge Jewelers and more than $18,000 worth from Friedlander’s Jewelry Store, but investigators said much of the cash never was accounted for.