FORMER BANK ASSISTANT MANAGER SENTENCED TO PRISON
FOR $600,000 EMBEZZLEMENT
Manager falsified bank records and forged documents for over two years
CYNTHIA L. TYLER, age 51, of Mountlake Terrace, Washington, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 21 months in prison and four years of supervised release for Bank Embezzlement. TYLER pleaded guilty March 10, 2005, to an embezzlement scheme that continued from December, 2001, through July, 2004, and netted her $605,000 from Key Bank in Mt. Vernon. At the time of the embezzlement, TYLER was a "Client Relations Leader" at the bank – a position equivalent to a branch Assistant Manager. In sentencing TYLER, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour rejected a request from TYLER's attorneys to reduce the percentage of her future income that must go to restitution. She will have to pay ten percent of her income to repay the bank.
According to court records, TYLER created fictitious documents, forged the signature of co-workers, made cashier's checks out to herself without paying for them and credited her and her family members bank accounts with funds that had never been deposited. She also made "deposits" to her bank account by feeding empty deposit envelopes into the ATM, knowing she could later balance the ATM and approve the bogus deposits in her account. Additionally, TYLER issued cashier's checks she never paid for in order to pay off her car loan and to purchase a car for her daughter. To cover her acts of embezzlement, TYLER manipulated the bank's general ledger accounts by issuing offsetting credits for the missing monies. As Assistant United States Attorney Lawrence Lincoln stated in his sentencing memo to the Court, this was not a one time event; rather, the scheme "entailed repeated executions – on at least a monthly basis – over a period of at least two and a half years."
TYLER quit her job at the bank in July, 2004. Through a civil lawsuit, Key Bank discovered that she then took her family on a luxurious trip to Las Vegas using money stolen from the bank. Key Bank has attempted to seize TYLER's assets to recoup the money lost to her theft.
The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Lawrence Lincoln. For additional information please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney's Office, at (206) 553-4110.
