Fraud Friday – Bank Manager Embezzles from Customer

September 7, 2018

Fraud Friday – Bank Manager Embezzles From Customer

By Dominic J Bartolone
Contributing Editor

A Zions bank manager who embezzled over $500,000 from a bank customer to buy a house and other personal items, ran into more trouble after forging a letter to the judge in his case.

Daniel Scott Frischknect, 33, of Bountiful, Utah, embezzled $565,591 from a single customer’s account using a third-party line of credit.

The U.S. attorney for Utah noted that Frischknect was raised in a good, stable home and served an LDS mission when he was 19.

“These facts make Mr. Frischknecht’s deliberate theft from Zions bank wholly gratuitous. His desire to live beyond his means came at the expense of those who trusted him, his employer and his family,” say prosecutors.

Frischknecht was initially scheduled to be sentenced last May after pleading guilty and faced a potential 10-year federal prison term. In preparation for his sentencing hearing, prosecutors recommended a shorter sentence of 33 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

In a petition to the court, family and friends of Frischknecht submitted several letters of support asking for leniency. However, investigators found that one of those letters, purportedly written by his current employer, and praising Frischknecht as an exceptional employee, was actually written by the defendant himself.

Based on the allegedly fraudulent letter, the court postponed the original embezzlement sentencing hearing and formally charged Frischknecht on June 13 with obstruction of justice by trying to influence the court, and identification fraud.

On August 13, prosecutors resolved both cases by dismissing the obstruction charge but recommended the court place additional time on to the embezzlement conviction because of the forged letter.

Frischknecht was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. Followed by two years of supervised release. He was allowed to remain free but ordered to report to authorities on Oct. 5 to begin serving his sentence.

However, there are new charges being levied against Frischknecht, and because of these new allegations, U.S. marshals placed him under arrest and booked him into the Salt Lake County Jail last week for violating the terms of his release.

Frischknecht’s attorney sent a letter to the court stating that he and his staff may have been the victim of the new allegation and requested to be withdrawn as counsel.

The court docket does not indicate what the new allegation is, but the judge granted the attorney’s request and a new attorney was appointed to represent him on the new charges.

Court documents show that Frischknecht has already repaid $565,591 in restitution to the victim.