NCJ Number
129288
Journal
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 60 Issue: 4 Dated: (April 1991) Pages: 15-18
Date Published
1991
Length
4 pages
Annotation
A large regional bank in California contacted the Los Angeles County District Attorney in 1988 to request assistance to prosecute employee embezzlement cases.
Abstract
The bank estimated that it had about 30 employee embezzlement cases a month with a resultant loss of $2.5 million a year. Statistical analysis of 1989 embezzlement cases revealed that 62 percent involved female employees, 66 percent of the employees involved had a high school education, 41 percent were between 20 and 25 years of age, 82 percent worked as tellers, 47 percent took cash, and 71 percent had less than 1 year of service with the bank. Investigators from the Los Angeles District Attorney's office met with bank representatives. The bank's main complaint was local law enforcement's inconsistency in handling embezzlement cases. In many instances, charges were not filed for several months after the initial complaint or an agency failed to keep the bank informed on the status of each case. The bank also found that law enforcement sometimes failed to file cases before the statute of limitations expired. A program was established that involved appointing a liaison investigator, determining how the district attorney's office could best use the bank's resources to process cases expeditiously, and conducting a class for the bank's investigative auditors on how to write reports of witness and suspect interviews and prosecutive summary reports. Between September 1988 and July 1990, 51 bank employee embezzlement cases were filed using the program. 3 footnotes