Former officer of failed bank charged with conspiracy to commit fraud

Federal prosecutors have charged a former bank officer with conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with the failed First State Bank of Camargo in western Oklahoma.

Nicki S. Day, 59, of Camargo, faces one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with a scheme prosecutors claim allowed her and others to use bank funds for personal expenses.

Prosecutors allege Day, as well as other employees, officers and directors of the bank, conspired to use bank funds to float personal checks and bank drafts when they didn’t actually have sufficient money to cover the transactions.

Day created fraudulent bank transactions to make purchases at QVC and Walmart, according to the charges.

Prosecutors claim Day allowed bank insiders and a relative to make debit payments or write checks, holding the transactions in suspension or placing them in a dormant account. Day, who worked as cashier, vice president and director, committed the acts between 2006 and 2010, according to the court documents.

Day also prepared reports to the bank’s board of directors and the FDIC that understated the bank’s overdraft position, according to the charge. The charges claim First State Bank of Camargo underreported overdrafts by as much as $3.7 million at one point.

Day’s lawyer, Thomas C. Riesen, declined to comment on the case. The maximum penalty Day could face would be five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine, according to court documents.

First State Bank of Camargo failed in January 2011.

Another former-First State Bank of Camargo employee, Marjorie H. Cole, 58, of Taloga, pleaded guilty in 2016 to conspiracy to defraud a financial institution filing a false income tax return. A date hasn’t been set for Cole’s sentencing hearing.

In a handwritten statement included in her guilty plea Cole said, “the other bank officers or employees and I depended on each other’s cooperation for us all to gain.”