Former Bank Vice President Sentenced for Fraudulently Transferring Money from Clients’ Accounts

Made 21 Fraudulent Wire Transfers in Seven Months Totaling $226,000

March 1, 2010 - BALTIMORE, MD—U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz sentenced Andrew Rosenfeld, age 39, of Ellicott City, Maryland, today to one year and a day followed by five years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Judge Motz also ordered that Rosenfeld pay restitution of $226,000.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department.

According to Rosenfeld’s plea agreement, from June 2008 to January 2009, Rosenfeld was a vice president client service manager at Wells Fargo Bank. The bank acted as a trustee for collateralized debt obligation (CDO) clients and was responsible for using money generated by the CDOs to pay invoices for its CDO clients. Rosenfeld supervised one of three teams of bank employees who executed wire transfers on behalf of CDO clients. To pay a client’s invoice, a member of Rosenfeld’s team would fill out a wire instruction, and submit the invoice and wire instruction to Rosenfeld or another supervisor for approval. Once approved, the wire transfer was executed to pay the invoice.

Beginning in June 2008, Rosenfeld and another bank employee involved in the scheme created false invoices to funnel money to themselves. Sometimes Rosenfeld submitted a false invoice to an unwitting member of his team causing a fraudulent wire transfer to be processed, which Rosenfeld would approve. The other employee also personally processed fraudulent wire transfers and submitted them to another unwitting supervisor to approve. Rosenfeld and the other employee involved in the scheme transferred the fraudulently obtained money into bank accounts controlled by the other employee or the other employee’s friends, and they all shared the money among themselves. Rosenfeld also recruited a third bank employee to fraudulently execute a wire transfer and Rosenfeld split his portion of the proceeds with him as well.

Rosenfeld was laid off in January 2009. At that time, 21 fraudulent wire transfers had been executed, resulting in a total loss of $226,000.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended Assistant United States Attorney Tonya Kelly Kowitz who prosecuted the case.