December 21, 2016
A Philadelphia man allegedly lured people on Facebook to help him defraud Citizens Bank of thousands of dollars.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors announced charges of bank fraud and identity theft against 24-year-old Steven Ronald Randall.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Randall used Facebook to solicit co-schemers into giving him their ATM cards and PINs for their Citizens Bank accounts so he could deposit bad checks and withdraw the funds before the bank knew they were bad.
According to an indictment, Randall posted pictures, "including numerous photographs of piles of cash," to Facebook in an effort to show that his scheme was lucrative.
Randall told his co-schemers to lie about their knowledge of fraudulent checks to investigators, prosecutors said.
Randall allegedly netted at least $47,000 in the scheme, splitting the money amongst himself and the others involved.
If convicted, Randall faces a maximum sentence of 80 years in prison, five years of supervised release, a $4.5 million fine and restitution of at least $52,000.
