Canadian opened checking account, then money disappeared, police say
One of the first things Joseph degrace did when he arrived in Debary last month was open a bank account and make a deposit.
Degrace, a resident of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, was planning to buy a 34-foot trailer at the High Banks Marina and spend about two months there. He didn’t get off to a good start. The check he wrote for the trailer bounced.
It was embarrassing, degrace said. Whenhewent to a restaurant for breakfast, he heard people talking about “the new guy” bouncing checks.
He also lost a week of his vacation trying to get to the bottom of what happened.
Volusia County deputy sheriffs have arrested a bank employee and his friend.
Darrell Ray Cantrell, 22, of Deltona, a former employee of the TD Bank on South Charles R. Beall Boulevard in Debary, and Justin Lee Braddock, 31, of Deltona, face charges of grand theft and using personal ID to misrepresent. According to arrest affidavits: On March 30, degrace opened a checking account at the Debary bank and obtained a debit card. An investigation by bank officials determined that on the same day, Cantrell created a second debit card on deGrace’s account.
The second card was used 23 minutes after Cantrell got off work, but surveillance video at an ATM where it was used showed someone other than Cantrell making the withdrawal.
Two men were captured on surveillance video using the card at a Best Buy in Sanford. One of them was Cantrell and the other was later identified as Braddock. In four days’ time, the fraudulent card was used to make withdrawals and purchases totaling $1,442 in Volusia County and $6,022.28 in Seminole County.
Cantrell gave deputies conflicting stories about the second debit card, insisting degrace had asked for a second card, something degrace denied.