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Bank employee allegedly stole $18K from sister
A then-employee at Bank of Guam was arrested over the weekend for allegedly stealing some $18,000 from the bank account of her sister while the sister was undergoing medical treatment off island.
Joanna Mendiola Torres, 42, was taken to Superior Court yesterday on charges of theft and forgery.
Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho allowed Torres to post a $400 cash and $3,600 unsecured bond. The judge granted the suspect’s proposed third-party custodian.
Police detective Andrew S. Taimanao stated in his report that Koban Unit police officers were dispatched to the Bank of Guam last Sept. 15 in response to a theft case.
Taimanao said a bank employee told a police officer that she wanted to file a complaint against Torres, who is their former employee.
Apparently, a bank customer called the bank on Sept. 5 and reported that money was missing from his wife’s bank account. The bank did an internal investigation and discovered that money was taken out of the account from May 23, 2014, to July 25, 2014. The total amount missing was $18,145. The bank allegedly discovered that it was Torres who took the money.
The bank terminated Torres on Sept. 12 due to the findings. A complainant told Bank of Guam that he and his wife were in the Philippines from April 6 to July 30, 2014, for her medical treatment when he discovered withdrawals from her savings account.
A bank official told police that on Sept. 11, 2014, she spoke to Torres, who confessed to forging her sister’s signature and withdrawing money from the account. The bank terminated Torres the next day.
The bank paid back to the victim’s husband the whole amount of $18,145 on Sept. 15. The victim is reportedly paralyzed from the neck down since Feb. 25, 2014, and is currently on assisted ventilation at the Commonwealth Health Center.
