United States Attorney
Northern District of Texas

1100 Commerce St., 3rd Fl.
Dallas, Texas 75242-1699

Telephone (214) 659-8600
Fax (214) 767-0978

PERSONAL BANKER SENTENCED TO
NEARLY FOUR YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON
ON BANK FRAUD CONVICTION

United States Attorney Richard B. Roper announced today that Sonny Chukwudi Uwadia, of Lancaster, Texas, was sentenced by United States District Judge Jorge A. Solis to 46 months imprisonment. Judge Solis also ordered that Uwadia pay $14,329.34 restitution to E-Trade Financial, G.E. Consumer Finance, CitiCorp Investigative Services and Bank of America. He has been in custody since his arrest in February 2006.

Uwadia, age 38, was originally charged in a 24-count federal indictment returned by a grand jury in Dallas in February 2006 with numerous counts of bank fraud, unlawful possession of unauthorized access devices and unlawful possession of means of identification of another. Uwadia pled guilty in April to one count of bank fraud.

Between May 25, 2000 and November 12, 2002, Uwadia worked as a personal banker at a Bank of America branch located in an Albertson’s supermarket grocery store located at 1300 W. Beltline Road in DeSoto, Texas. As part of his job, he was authorized to access confidential customer information and in fact, signed a confidentiality agreement regarding Bank of America’s confidential information on May 25, 2000.

Uwadia admitted in court documents that from April 2002 through April 2003 he defrauded Bank of America by transferring, transmitting, disseminating and conveying confidential Bank of America customer information, in the form of paper print-outs of electronically stored customer information, to others not authorized to receive it. On April 25, 2003, the Farmers Branch Police Department arrested Edmond Nkem Ekene in possession of 21paper print-outs of Bank of America Customer identification information that the government argued came from Uwadiabased on numerous telephone calls between Ekene's cell phone and a cell phone used by Uwadia, including one call approximately one hour before Ekene obtained an $8,000 line of credit from a furniture store in Farmer's Branch, using the stolen identity of one of said customers. Based in large part on the foregoing, on February 16, 2005, Judge Solis sentenced Ekene to 71 months imprisonment, restitution of $194,369.39, and a three-year term of supervised release

U.S. Attorney Roper praised the investigative efforts of the Department of Treasury, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Joseph M. Revesz.

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