Bank Teller Sentenced to 15 Months in Federal Prison for Gradually Embezzling $180,000 from South Side Bank

CHICAGO — A former teller at a South Side bank has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for gradually embezzling approximately $180,000 in bank funds.

PATRICK GALVAN worked as a teller at Chicago Community Bank in the city’s Bridgeport neighborhood.  Galvan pocketed cash from his teller drawer and concealed the theft by falsely inflating the amount of coins held in the bank’s vault.  Galvan took the money over a two-and-a-half year period, occasionally processing coins through a coin counter at his teller station in order to give the appearance that he was handling large amounts of coins from customers.

Galvan, 39, of Chicago, pleaded guilty last year to one count of embezzlement.  U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey on Wednesday imposed the 15-month prison sentence.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Jeffrey S. Sallet, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Joseph Moriarty, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Regional Office of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - Office of Inspector General.

“This was a serious, calculated, and deliberate crime, and the defendant took advantage of the trust placed in him by his employer to pull it off,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet S. Bhachu argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum.

In addition to his teller duties, Galvan managed the bank’s coin accounts and was responsible for reporting the total amount of coins present in the vault.  Galvan admitted in a plea declaration that he pocketed the cash and falsely reported the coin total from 2008 to 2010.