Anita Gail Moody bank fraud: Former president of Enloe State Bank in Cooper, Texas stole $11 million after fabricating 100 fake loans to herself.
A former president of a small-town East Texas bank has admitted to stealing more than $11million and then setting fire to financial documents in a bid to cover up her theft.
Anita Gail Moody, 57, on Friday pleaded guilty to federal counts of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and arson.
Court files described Moody serving as president of Enloe State Bank in Cooper, Texas – a prairie town of 2,000.
The Dallas Morning News reported that Moody had worked at the banking institution founded in Enloe in 1928 in various capacities from the time she was a teenager.
On May 11, 2019, a day before the bank was scheduled for a routine review by the Texas Department of Banking, someone had stacked files on the boardroom table and set them on fire.
The blaze was contained to the bank’s boardroom, but the entire building sustained smoke damage. The fire was later determined to be arson, according to a statement from the US Justice Department.
A subsequent investigation revealed Moody, who’d served as the bank’s president for over ten years having created more than 100 fake loans in the names of several people, including some actual bank customers.
Moody eventually admitted to starting the fire in the boardroom in a bid to cover up the fraudulent loans.
The woman also confessed to using the $11million stolen from the bank between 2012-2019 to fund her boyfriend’s business, friends’ businesses, and her own ‘lifestyle.’
Moody has agreed to a sentence of 84 months ( 7 years) in federal prison. She also must pay restitution in the amount of $11,136,241.82. Do you suppose?
The Texas Department of Banking on May 31, 2019, closed Enloe State bank, citing ‘insider abuse and fraud by former officers.’
It was the first bank failure in the nation since Washington Federal Bank for Savings closed in Illinois in December 2017.
Records indicate that in March 2017, Moody was arrested in Hopkins, Texas, on a DWI charge. It is unclear how that case was resolved.
