AUSA VICKIE E. LEDUC at 410-209-4885

FORMER BANK TELLER CONVICTED IN SCHEME TO STEAL OVER $27,000 THROUGH SHAM ROBBERY

Also Conspired to Kidnap Co-Workers at Gunpoint to Carry Out Additional Robbery

BALTIMORE, Maryland - Jayne A. McLean, age 26, of Baltimore was convicted yesterday after a one week trial of three counts of conspiracy to commit bank larceny, bank larceny and conspiracy to carry out an additional bank robbery that contemplated abducting at least two of her former co-workers and forcing them to open the bank’s vaults, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

According to testimony presented at trial, McLean was employed as a teller at the Owen Brown shopping center branch of Chevy Chase Bank in Columbia, Maryland from December 2000 until May 2001. In May 2001, McLean conspired with at least three other persons to steal money from the bank by carrying out a sham bank robbery. The conspirators agreed that McLean would violate bank security procedures by accumulating an excessive amount of cash in her teller drawer. One of the other co-conspirators would then enter the bank and present McLean with a threatening demand note. After handing over all the money in her cash drawer and allowing the “robber” to make his escape, McLean would announce to her co-workers that she had been robbed.

According to trial testimony, during her morning shift at the bank on May 16, 2001, McLean accumulated nearly $28,000 in her teller drawer. McLean then met with her co-conspirators at a nearby McDonald’s restaurant during her lunch break and advised them that she had ample cash in her drawer, and that this would be a good time to come in and carry out the robbery. Shortly thereafter, McLean’s co-conspirator Kendall Jones entered the bank and handed her a threatening note demanding money. McLean gave $27,752 from her teller drawer to Jones.

Testimony also showed that between June and October 2001 McLean, who had recently been discharged from her position as a teller devised another plan to rob the same bank. This plan called for McLean to supply co-conspirators with information about her former co-workers, such as descriptions of the cars they drove, where they lived, and whether they lived with any other persons, so that her co-conspirators could kidnap one of her former employees after they left work and force the employee at gunpoint to return to the bank after hours and open the vault. McLean provided her co-conspirators several pages of handwritten notes, including personal information about four of her former co-workers at the branch, and the interior layout of the bank, including a diagram of the bank’s vault. The co-conspirators never acted on the information supplied by McLean.

Kendall Jones pleaded guilty to entering a bank to commit a felony offense in connection with the May 16, 2001 bank larceny and was sentenced on May 6, 2005 to 30 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake also ordered Jones to pay restitution of $27,572.20.

McLean faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a combined fine of $750,000 for the three charges on which she was convicted. A sentencing date has not been scheduled. An additional co-defendant Windell Myers, age 30, of Baltimore, is scheduled to go to trial on charges of assisting in the May 16, 2001 sham robbery on September 5, 2006.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the investigative work performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Baltimore City and Howard County Police Departments. Mr. Rosenstein also thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jefferson M. Gray and Michael C. Hanlon, who prosecuted the case.