OCC enforcement actions for February 2024

The OCC has released its February 2024 list of enforcement actions taken against national banks and federal savings associations and related individuals.

• The previously announced cease and desist order, order for civil money penalty, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley agreement issued to City National Bank, Los Angeles, California.
• A cease and desist order against Blue Ridge Bank, N.A., Martinsville, Virginia, for unsafe or unsound practices, including those related to BSA/AML, capital ratios, capital and strategic planning, liquidity risk management, and information technology controls. The deficiencies in the BSA/AML compliance program resulted in violations of law, rule, or regulation, and the bank also failed to correct previously reported BSA problems.
• A formal agreement with The First National Bank of St. Ignace, St. Ignace, Michigan, for unsafe or unsound practices, including those related to capital planning, capital stress testing, and strategic planning, and a violation of law, rule, or regulation related to payment of dividends.
• An order of prohibition and for payment of a $50,000 civil money penalty against Stephen Adams, former senior vice president and managing director of residential lending, Sterling Bank and Trust, FSB, Southfield Michigan, for his role in failing to appropriately supervise, investigate, and discipline employees originating residential mortgage loans.
• Orders of prohibition issued to—
  • Cole R. Mann, former branch manager, PNC Bank, National Association, Wilmington, Delaware, for stealing, embezzling, or otherwise misappropriating funds from the bank and a bank customer
  • Chimere Shanta Mitchell, former fraud and claims operations specialist at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for misappropriating confidential information of bank customers, including more than 20 elderly customers, and selling the information to a third party, resulting in fraudulent transactions
  • Aaron Parsons, relationship banker and Webster Bank N.A., Stamford, Connecticut, for unauthorized withdrawals from accounts of bank customers, four of whom are elderly, and depositing the funds in his own bank account
  • Nyema'sha Taylor, former teller at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for knowingly processing unauthorized cash withdrawals from a customer’s account
  • Francis Andujar Velazquez, former senior customer service representative, Santander Bank, Wilmington, Delaware, for misappropriating funds from customers’ accounts by making purchases using confidential bank customer information and selling confidential information of bank customers to a third party and facilitating fraudulent transactions
  • Mirsha Yamili Wilson, former associate Banker, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Columbus, Ohio, for taking cash used to supply a bank branch’s ATMs and concealing the shortage
• Personal cease and desist orders against—
  • Colleen Kimmel, former general counsel, Sterling Bank and Trust, FSB, Southfield, Michigan, for her role in not ensuring the bank conducted or suggesting to the Board that the bank conduct an investigation into concerns related to a residential mortgage loan product, not ensuring the bank’s BSA program had an adequate system of internal controls, and not timely reporting suspicious activity related to certain residential mortgage loans
  • Jonathan Kolk, former residential underwriting manager, Sterling Bank and Trust, FSB, Southfield, Michigan, for capitulating to pressure to quickly underwrite certain residential mortgage loans and his role in underwriting, and supervising the underwriting of, loans that had false or fraudulent loan applications