Fraud Friday – The Relatively Green Loan Officer Defense Fails – VP Guilty on 44 Fraud Counts

August 1, 2014

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

bribeThe defense attorney told the jury former Fifth Third Relationship Manager Paulette Roberts was not a greedy vice president but a relatively green loan officer working with an even greener credit analyst at the bank.

The jury didn’t buy it, bringing in 44 fraud, bribery and money laundering convictions in less than three hours this week.

The fraud cost the bank $12 million in losses.

Check out this snippet from the Toledo Blade’s trial coverage.

“Prosecutors alleged that while Roberts was employed as a vice president in the Toledo bank’s commercial real estate department, she falsified loan documents involving four projects in the then-booming area around the Cabela’s store in Dundee, Mich.

“In exchange, Roberts was promised $300,000 from clients, and received more than $100,000 shortly after she left the bank’s employment in February, 2007.

“Records showed that Roberts received the payments for ‘consulting’ work through a limited liability corporation she formed, and later spent the money on cars, gold coins, and other personal expenses.”

She faces the obligatory hundreds of years in prison and millions of dollars in fines. She is out on bond until her sentencing.

Read the 2012 indictment here.

Read trial coverage here