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| Kenneth L. Wainstein | |
PRESS RELEASE |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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Washington, D.C. - A former bank employee, Kenneth C. Baker, was sentenced today to serve a total of 51 months in prison, after pleading guilty in March to charges related to using his position as an investment consultant with a local bank to steal $96,000 from an 88-year-old woman, announced United States Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein.
Baker, 44, most recently of Durham, North Carolina, pleaded guilty on March 22, 2006, in U.S. District Court before the Honorable Emmet G. Sullivan to four counts of Bank Fraud, Money Laundering and the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. At the sentencing today, Baker was sentenced to the maximum sentence recommended under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines for the four federal charges, 41 months, and to an additional consecutive term of ten months for a violation of the D.C. Code. He was also ordered to make $36,000 in restitution payments to his former employer, SunTrust Bank, which paid the victim back after the theft was discovered.
According to the government’s evidence, in February 2004, while working as an Investment Consultant with SunTrust, the defendant was asked to speak with the then-88-year-old victim about preparing her estate. Soon thereafter, the defendant went to the victim's home, took her some groceries, and asked to be reimbursed. Upon seeing where the victim kept her checkbook, the defendant stole a check, wrote it out in the amount of $96,000, an amount he knew was in her account, based on his ability to access that information. He made the check payable to his friend, 24-year-old Ruqiya Akhdar. Over the next two weeks, the defendant and Ms. Akhdar traveled to different SunTrust Bank Branches collecting considerable sums of cash, including cash transactions involving $9,000 and $25,000. On June 8, 2005, Ms. Akhdar pled guilty to bank fraud and has been cooperating with the government's investigation.
At the sentencing hearing today, Judge Sullivan noted that the defendant was a former Police Officer with the Alexandria, VA Police Department. The defendant was fired in 1994, when it was discovered that he had inappropriate relations with three 15-year-old high school girls, under the guise of a “mentoring program.”
In announcing the sentence, United States Attorney Wainstein praised the efforts of Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agents Charles E. Price II and Jeanne P.A. Schnese. He also commended the work of law student intern Nelson Wagner, and Assistant United States Attorneys Roy L. Austin, Jr. and Barbara Kittay, and former Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lynn Holliday and Chad Sarchio.