Former bank employee pleads guilty in fraud case

A former assistant vice president at SunTrust Bank pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke to forging signatures to issue checks to himself. Douglas Calvin Powell Jr. supervised several SunTrust branches in Southwest Virginia and around Charlottesville during a decade of work for the bank. His employment was terminated in January 2008. Powell pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud as part of an agreement structured to move his case through court as quickly as possible. He waived an indictment and pleaded guilty under what in the federal court system is called an information, a statement of the accusations against him. According to that statement, Powell learned that the bank did not closely track the process used to issue checks for safety deposit box refunds. He began using the same mechanism to generate checks for himself. He used the checks to reimburse his corporate credit card, which he was using for personal expenses and cash advances. Posted in: Internal Fraud