Former Wells Fargo executive pleads guilty

The former head of Wells Fargo’s retail bank has pleaded guilty to obstructing a bank examination and will pay a banking regulator a $17 million fine for her role in the bank’s sweeping fake accounts scandal.

Carrie Tolstedt faces up to 16 months in prison under the plea agreement, according to federal prosecutors in Los Angeles. The civil penalty was announced separately by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which said Tolstedt was “significantly responsible” for the widespread sales abuses at the bank, where potentially millions of accounts were opened without customer approval.

The fine resolves charges the OCC originally filed against Tolstedt in 2020, when it also fined several other former senior bank executives and barred its former CEO, John Stumpf, from the banking industry. Tolstedt is also now barred from the industry.

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo declined to comment. An attorney for Tolstedt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.