First National Community Bank

FinCEN has announced it has assessed a $1.5 million civil money penalty and the OCC has imposed a $500,000 CMP against the First National Community Bank of Dunmore, Pennsylvania, for willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). Five hundred thousand dollars of FinCEN's $1.5 million assessment will be concurrent with the penalties and remedies imposed by the OCC. The bank admitted that it knowingly failed to file suspicious activity reports on transactions involving illicit proceeds from a judicial corruption scheme spanning over five years, in which two former Pennsylvania judges misused their positions to profit from, among other things, sending thousands of juveniles to detention facilities in which they had a financial interest. One of the judges was on FNCB's board of directors and controlled accounts at the bank through which he processed the proceeds of his illegal activity. Despite several red flags indicating suspicious activity, FNCB did not file a single suspicious activity report related to these accounts until after the judge's first guilty plea in 2009.