Press Release
Former Palm Beach County Branch Bank Manager Sentenced for Structuring Financial Transactions to Avoid Filing Currency Transaction Reports
May 25, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and José A. Gonzalez, Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CID), announced that Carey Robinson, a former branch manager of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in West Palm Beach, was sentenced today to 57 months in prison, to be followed by 2 years of supervised release. Robinson previously pled guilty to one count of structuring financial transactions and causing Chase to fail to file required currency transaction reports, in violation of Title 31, United States Code, Section 5324(a)(1).
According to the Criminal Information and plea documents filed with the court, Robinson was employed as a bank manager at Chase from 2008 through May 2011. Beginning in approximately May 2009, Robinson started exchanging small bills for large bills for a bank customer. At first, the customer would bring stacks of $20 bills to the bank once or twice per week, concealed in a brown bag. Robinson would escort the customer into his office, discreetly count the cash, and then direct a vault custodian to exchange the $20 bills for $100 bills. In some instances, the customer would wait at the bank while the vault manager did the exchange and then collect the $100 bills and leave. In other instances, the customer would drop off the cash and then leave the bank and collect the $100 bills from the defendant later that day at a parking lot near the defendant’s home. Later in the scheme, the customer stopped coming to the bank altogether to avoid arousing the suspicions of bank employees. During that period, Robinson would meet the customer at a prearranged location, pick up the cash from him, conduct the exchange at the bank, and then deliver the $100 bills to the customer at another location.
In a span of two years, Robinson exchanged almost $1 million for this customer. Most exchanges involved between $30,000 and $40,000. Although a bank is required to file currency transaction reports with the Department of Treasury for all cash transactions involving more than $10,000, Robinson ensured that the bank never filed a single currency transaction report for any of these exchanges.
Mr. Ferrer commended the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, for their investigation of this matter. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emalyn Webber and Adrienne Rabinowitz.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
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