| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | For Information, Contact Public Affairs |
| Monday, July 3, 2006 | Channing Phillips (202) 514-6933 |
| Probation supervisor who deposited a counterfeit $66,000 check into his DOJ Credit Union account and then withdrew more than $61,000 pleads guilty to bank fraud | |
| Washington,
D.C. - A probation and parole supervisor, Mark Davis-McCary, has pleaded guilty to bank fraud after depositing a $66,775 counterfeit check into his DOJ Credit Union account and then withdrawing more than $61,000 from the account, United States Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein and Joseph Persichini, Jr., Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, announced today. Davis-McCrary, 25, of Landover, Maryland, pled guilty on Thursday, June 29, 2006, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Reggie B. Walton to one count of bank fraud. Davis-McCrary is scheduled to be sentenced on September 29, 2006, and faces a statutory maximum of 30 years of imprisonment and payment of restitution of more than $61,000. According to the facts presented at the plea hearing, on November 2, 2005, Davis-McCrary responded to an email solicitation at his place of employment, where he worked as a probation and parole supervisor, by agreeing to provide assistance in collecting funds, cashing a check and distributing the proceeds of that check on behalf of an unknown individual purporting to be a Dr. Raymond Akeem, Managing Director of the Addax & Oryx Petroleum Group, Ltd. (“Addax”). As part of the agreement, Davis-McCrary would receive 10 percent of the check proceeds while the remaining 90 percent would go to Addax. On December 12, 2005, Davis-McCrary deposited a counterfeit check in the amount of $66,775.00 into a checking account he maintained at Justice Federal Credit Union (“JFCU”) at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) branch, located at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in the District of Columbia. Prior to that deposit, Davis-McCrary’s JFCU account had a negative balance of $522.44. The $66,775.00 counterfeit check was provisionally cleared on December 28, 2005, at which time those funds were made available to Davis-McCrary. Davis-McCrary then made numerous ATM withdrawals from his JFCU account and used the proceeds of the counterfeit check to pay for personal expenses, including payments for wireless telephone services, consumer electronics, hotel room charges and gasoline. In addition, Davis-McCrary made a series of large cash withdrawals from the JFCU DOJ branch totaling $31,400. On January 9, 2006, Davis-McCrary entered the JFCU DOJ branch, and withdrew $500 in cash and obtained a $21,000 cashier’s check dated January 9, 2006, made payable to an individual with the initials “DD.” On January 17, 2006, the $66,775.00 check Davis-McCrary deposited into his JFCU account on December 12, 2005, was returned as counterfeit. Security personnel at JFCU immediately initiated a fraud investigation and reported the incident to the FBI. As a result of Davis-McCrary’s actions, JFCU suffered an actual loss of $61,402.61. In announcing the guilty plea, United States Attorney Wainstein and Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office Persichini commended the investigatory work of the FBI and praised Assistant United States Attorney Ronald W. Sharpe, who is prosecuting the case. |
|