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April 23, 2008

Coventry man pleads guilty in bank fraud case

PROVIDENCE -- A Coventry man pleaded guilty in federal court today to bank fraud in which he used worthless checks and transfers to inflate accounts in an attempt to get $92,002 out of two banks.

Michael R. Robitaille, 25, entered the plea before Judge Mary M. Lisi in U.S. District Court in Providence, U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente's office said in a news release. Sentencing is scheduled for July 18. Maximum penalty for bank fraud is 30 years imprisonment and a $1 million fine. The government did not agree to any sentencing recommendation in exchange for the plea. Robitaille is in state custody.

Prosecutor Peter F. Neronha said at the plea hearing the government could show that in May 2006 Robitaille opened a checking account at a Massachusetts branch of Commerce Bank Trust with a $25 cash deposit.

Over the next several weeks, Robitaille opened two checking accounts and a savings account at different Rhode Island branches of Domestic Bank, and a checking account and two savings accounts at BankRI. Depositing only $11 in real money, he inflated the accounts' value by depositing worthless checks drawn against previous accounts or by making fraudulent transfers between checking and savings accounts

Robitaille then several times withdrew cash or wrote checks to third parties against the various accounts at Domestic Bank and BankRI. Robitaille tried to get the $92,002 from Domestic Bank and BankRI, after depositing just a total of $26 in real money in the three banks. Domestic Bank and BankRI denied payment on most of the checks, losing a combined $22,985 between them, mostly to cash withdrawals.

In June 2006 -- a month or so after Robitaille began his scheme -- a Secret Service agent questioned him and, prosecutors say, Robitaille admitted the fraud.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

Posted by Mike McKinney  at 3:28 PM | Permalink

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