The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has banned two former TD Bank employees, two former Wells Fargo employees and one former PNC employee from the banking sector indefinitely, the agency announced Thursday.
Armando De Leon, who managed a TD branch in Hialeah, Florida, from 2007 to 2021, allegedly submitted fraudulent COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program loan applications for two limited liability companies he formed and owned. By falsely claiming he had four employees and producing illegitimate Internal Revenue Service forms, De Leon enriched himself with over $80,000, the OCC alleged.
Charron Meadows, who managed a team at TD’s Mount Laurel, New Jersey, call center from 2017 to 2024, allegedly misappropriated at least $150,000 from the bank in his final three months working there, the OCC said. Meadows allegedly did this by “repeatedly causing [TD] to credit his personal account at the bank and withdrawing the funds,” according to the regulator.
Carolyn Hicks, who worked at a Wells Fargo branch in Columbus, Georgia, from 2003 to 2024 – most recently as a bank operations assistant manager – allegedly misappropriated roughly $25,000 from a bank ATM between January and February 2024. Her actions “resulted in financial gain to respondent and loss to the bank and involved personal dishonesty,” the OCC said.
Walther Riano-Vanegas, who worked as a teller at a Wells Fargo branch in Linden, New Jersey, from 2018 to 2022, stole $15,670 from two branch ATMs, the OCC said. In a January 2022 written statement, he admitted to stealing the money between September and December 2021, according to the regulator.
Gerard Milligan, who worked as a teller at a PNC branch in Royal Palm, Florida, in 2020 and 2021, allegedly made false attestations on a PPP loan application for his business, the OCC said. Because of those false attestations, including a fake IRS form showing payroll expenses that didn’t exist, he received $141,530 for personal gain, the regulator said.
Rather than using that money for payroll expenses, his expenditures included roughly $40,000 in checks payable to his father; $17,000 in checks payable to cash; $15,000 in checks payable to himself; $6,500 in ATM transactions; and a $17,000 cashier’s check payable to a luxury car dealer, the OCC said.
The former employees are banned from working at any depository institution, including banks or credit unions, unless they obtain written consent by the OCC and the institution’s federal regulator.
Spokespeople for the OCC, Wells Fargo and PNC declined to comment. A TD spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
