FORMER BRANCH MANAGER AT STANDARD FEDERAL BANK IN PORT HURON SENTENCED TO 37 MONTHS IN PRISON

STEPHEN AGNEW, formally the branch manger of a Port Huron, Michigan branch of Standard Federal Bank (SFB) (now LaSalle Bank), was sentenced today to 37 month's imprisonment based on a conviction for bank fraud, announced Stephen J. Murphy, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and Andrew G. Arena, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Agnew pleaded guilty to this charge in February 2007 before U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland. At today's sentencing hearing, Judge Cleland also ordered Agnew to pay $985,855.42 in restitution to LaSalle Bank. In addition, Judge Cleland ordered him to serve a 4-year term of supervised release following his release from prison. Agnew, 38 years old and a resident of Port Huron, Michigan, will voluntarily surrender to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to serve his sentence.

In imposing the sentence, Judge Cleland observed that the extent of Agnew's schemes to defraud and to cover up those frauds, as well as the length of time they spanned, warranted a sentence that would "sting."

United States Attorney Murphy said, "Today's sentence shows that supervisors of financial institutions who abuse their positions in the commission of fraud against customers will serve substantial time in prison. Fraud against financial institutions and their customers is often complex, fact intensive, and difficult to unravel. Much credit for the success of this prosecution is owed to the excellent investigative work done by the FBI and the invaluable assistance given by the loss prevention department at Standard Federal Bank."

At the time of Agnew's offenses, late 1999 through early 2005, he was the manager of a Standard Federal Bank (SFB) branch in Port Huron, Michigan. Throughout these years Agnew executed a series of schemes to defraud using various member accounts.

Agnew's fraudulent schemes included the following: He accepted large deposits of funds from SFB customers and told them he would deposit the funds into interest bearing certificates of deposit. Instead, Agnew took the funds and converted them to his own use. On several occasions Agnew, abused his authority by accessing customer accounts and without their permission, withdrew funds for his own use. On numerous occasions Agnew accessed customer lines of credit and withdrew available funds which he also put to his own use. Throughout the course of these schemes, Agnew took extraordinary measures to hide the fraud including creating false account statements that were given victim customers.

The criminal investigation of this case was conducted by the FBI, with assistance from the loss prevention department of Standard Federal Bank.

Detroit Press Releases | Detroit Home Page