Culver City Man Sentenced to 63 Months in Federal Prison for Check Fraud Scheme

A Culver City man was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison on Wednesday, for taking part in a check fraud network between 2000 and 2006 that involved several bank employees, according to the FBI via a press release from 7th Space.

According to 7th Space, the announcement was made by André Birotte Jr, the United States Attorney in Los Angeles and Steven Martinez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles on behalf of the joint investigative agencies, including the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

United States District Judge David O Carter sentenced Sean Bazille, 45, to 63 months in federal prison for his role in the check fraud scheme. He was was found guilty of charges including conspiracy and bank fraud for distributing forged checks and recruiting runners to cash fraudulent checks.

 According to the release, Bazille acted as a middleman and worked closely with the main defendant in the case, 36-year-old Terry Massengill of Bellflower.

The release stated:

According to court documents, Massengill perpetrated the fraud by paying Wells Fargo employees to access and steal customer bank account information and provide it to Massengill. Throughout the fraud, Massengill and co-conspirators arranged to have checks in the names of legitimate Wells Fargo customers delivered to various addresses in multiple states. Checks were then forged and cashed in amounts that ranged from several thousand dollars to, in one case, $42,000. Co-conspirators who acted as check-cashers or “runners” would then return a portion of the funds to defendant Massengill.

In addition Massengill arranged for a co-conspirator to impersonate account holders and answer phone calls from Wells Fargo Bank employees seeking payment authorization. Massengill did this by altering the phone numbers associated with the account, then routing the calls to a phone number under his control.

Bazille’s sentencing brings the case to an end. Masengill has already been sentenced to 51 months in federal prison, following a guilty plea and an additional 15 including five former employees of Wells Fargo Bank in Los Angeles and Orange Counties received sentences up to 64 months in federal prison.

Wells Fargo has now modified its fraud prevention security procedures to ensure a similar fraud scheme can’t happen again. However, the bank lost $1,658,729 as a result of the scheme and more than 100 bank accounts were compromised.

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