Joseph San Nicolas will begin a 46-month federal prison sentence on Feb. 24 after prosecutors said he exploited insider access at an Oklahoma credit union and a banking software company to steal more than $588,000 from member and customer accounts at three financial institutions.
San Nicolas, 34, of Edmond, Okla., pleaded guilty to one felony count of bank fraud and two felony counts of money laundering last August, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oklahoma City. He used the stolen funds to pay personal expenses and purchase two cars.
From 2014 to March 2022, San Nicolas was an employee at the $6 billion Tinker Federal Credit Union in Oklahoma City where he had access to members' accounts. His position at the credit union was not disclosed in court documents.
Starting in January 2022, San Nicolas linked his Coinbase, Robinhood and Charles Schwab accounts to two TFCU trust accounts and two member accounts. None of the owners of the accounts authorized him to withdraw funds.
By August 2022, he had landed a job at an unidentified banking software company, which provided a banking software platform at TFCU, the $950 million Houston Federal Credit Union in Sugar Land, Texas, and the Bank of San Francisco. His title at the software firm was not disclosed in court documents.
He continued the scheme at the software firm, linking his investment accounts to five additional TFCU member trust accounts, as well as one member trust account at Houston Federal Credit Union (HFCU) and one customer trust account at the Bank of San Francisco, according to court documents.
San Nicolas also wrote nine counterfeit checks and deposited them into his SoFi Bank Accounts. The fraudulent checks were drawn from a member trust account at HFCU and from a customer trust account at the Bank of San Francisco.
In total, he stole $588,515 from TFCU, HFCU and the Bank of San Francisco accounts through 215 separate withdrawals, payments and counterfeit check transactions, prosecutors said.
Court documents did not disclose how San Nicolas scheme was detected.
He was ordered to pay $242,385 in restitution, which included $123,478 to Coinbase, $111,907 to HFCU and $7,000 to the Bank of San Francisco, court documents showed.
Peter Strozniak can be reached at peter.strozniak@arc-network.com.
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