A Greenwich real estate investment firm is suing two banks that allowed a former employee to cash checks she was not entitled to.
Nutmeg Investment Partners,located at 44 Greenwich Avenue, is suing Bank of America and Greenwich Bank & Trust for cashing fraudulent checks that their former office manager Claire Balducci made out to herself and cashed at several of their locations during a three-year-old.
Forty-six year old Balducci, of Stratford, pleaded guilty to wire fraud charge in U.S. District Court in Hartford.
Nutmeg claims from September 2008 to November 2011 Balducci, who had access to the company’s six bank accounts, wrote several checks to herself and third-party vendors, which she deposited to her personal People’s United Bank account, totaling around $1.1 million. In addition, the real estate firm said Balducci opened a J.P. Morgan Chase credit card in the company’s managing partner’s name and authorized herself as a co-user of the account. She then used the credit card to purchase personal items.
Authorities said she Balducci used interstate wires in the scheme by calling the J.P. Morgan Chase call center outside of Connecticut from telephone numbers in Connecticut to arrange setting up the credit card account.
Balducci, who was released from police custody on $250,000 bond and placed on home confinement under electronic monitoring, faces up to 20 years in prison when she is sentenced on March 6.
Nutmeg’s attorney Mark Sherman, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of his client over the summer, said his client “wants justice…. [because] the checks were cashed at various banks in the area to my client’s detriment.”
As of press time a trial date had not been set.
