A former Bangor Savings Bank teller who embezzled from 48 customers, many of them elderly and some with dementia, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Bangor to serve one month in prison and seven months of home confinement.
Brittany Mace, 24, of Searsport, stole more than $26,000 from Bangor Savings Bank customers from Aug. 23, 2010 to Nov. 3, 2011, while working at the bank’s Searsport branch. During that nearly two-year period, she made unauthorized transactions for amounts as low as $20 and for more than $1,000 on several occasions, according to court records.
Mace pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Bangor last Nov. 14 to a single count of bank embezzlement.
Judge D. Brock Hornby also sentenced Mace to pay $25,998 in restitution and serve five years of supervised release after completing her term of confinement.
Bangor Savings Bank reported Mace after conducting an audit of every transaction she handled while employed there and discovering that she used a variety of techniques to steal from customers. She deleted already completed customer transactions and reprocessed them for cash back, used duplicate withdrawal tickets, altered amounts on tickets, forged customer signatures and altered dates on tickets, according to a prosecution document filed with the court by Assistant U.S. Attorney James McCarthy.
Mace admitted, after being confronted by Bangor Savings Bank’s human resources director on Nov. 3, 2011, that she had made the withdrawals from customer accounts, including nearly $10,400 taken from a single customer in 39 transactions, McCarthy wrote.
“When asked whether there were any other customers to whom she had done similar things, such as any who were disabled, or mentally disabled or not full-functioning, Mace said that she had, although not all customers affected were disabled,” McCarthy wrote.
Mace confessed that she had developed a drug habit and used the money to buy oxycontin and pay bills, according to the court document.
Scott Dolan can be reached at 791-6304 or at:
Twitter: @scottddolan
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