Tiverton Woman Admits Role in Bank Fraud Scheme

PROVIDENCE – A Tiverton woman admitted to a federal judge today that she participated in a scheme to defraud a Rhode Island bank of nearly a quarter of a million dollars that had been deposited as a result of a business email compromise, announced Acting United States Attorney Sara Miron Bloom.

Brenda Partin, 54, pleaded guilty today to a charge of attempted bank fraud. She is scheduled to be sentenced on June 10, 2025. The sentence imposed will be determined by a federal district judge after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

According to information presented to the court, in May 2022, a compromised email account belonging to a Tennessee-based construction company was used to deceive a global snack-food company into altering its vendor payment information to a Rhode Island bank. An investigation later determined that the bank account to which the payment was misdirected belonged to Partin.

Between August 15 and September 19, 2022, the Tennessee company sent four payments totaling nearly $225,000 that were intended to pay the snack-food company to the defendant’s account. Withdrawals from the account began almost immediately. On September 8, 2022, Partin wired $26,470.05 from the account for the purchase of an automobile, which she registered in her name. On that same date, Partin directed an associate to open a second account at a local bank, into which $30,000 was transferred from the first account. Over the next four months, multiple withdrawals and purchases were made from both accounts.

On December 5, 2022, the bank closed the second account with a remaining balance of approximately $108,000. For the next nine months, the defendant and others attempted to convince bank employees to release the funds. Partin falsely claimed that the money was a settlement from a car accident; that the money had come from Partin’s fiancé; that the co-holder of the bank account earned the money working in Turkey and that he had leukemia and the funds were needed to address his affairs in the event he passed away; and in August 2023, the defendant claimed to a bank employee that her associate had passed away and that she needed the money to pay funeral expenses.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Juliane Klein.

The matter was investigated by Rhode Island State Police Financial Crimes Unit and the FBI’s Rhode Island Complex Financial Crimes Task Force.

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