Bank Robbers Used Stolen Money To Purchase Suite At Atlanta Hawks Game, Will Now Watch From Jail Instead

SteveHolt11 years ago

Four Atlanta area bank robbers are heading directly to jail — without collecting $200 — after stealing $4 million from the Bank of New York Mellon through a series of wire transfers over a number of years.

The four white collar criminals, Zachary Vaughn, Derek Spinks, Harry Cobb and William Leese, used the stolen funds to purchase personal vehicles, gold, expensive trips and most importantly, a suite at Philips Arena so they could watch Atlanta Hawks games in a perpetual state of luxury.

For all you wannabe bank robbers out there, here is how they stole the dough, from the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

From 2005 to 2013, Vaughn was employed by the Bank of New York Mellon in Atlanta, where he had access to client funds that were held at the bank, according to investigators. One of the accounts held more than $4.3 million in reserve funds, which belonged to a customer of the bank, and Vaughn and Spinks conspired to steal the funds from the bank, authorities said.

In December 2009, Vaughn wired $4.3 million from the Bank of New York to a bank account in the name of a business owned by Spinks, prosecutors said. Spinks and Leese then invested the money in C&L Logistics and Transportation, LLC, a business owned by Leese and defendant Cobb. In January 2010, the defendants arranged to move the $4 million to a C&L bank account that was controlled by Leese and Cobb.

The Atlanta Hawks Twitter account didn’t condone the thievery, but gave the criminals some well-deserved credit for spending the cash on a box at Hawks games instead of something more economical.

For those of you who have ever watched your team play from the comfort of a suite, you understand the benefits of having a season-long box at your disposal. Especially in the NBA, where the on-the-court action in 95 percent regular season match-ups is about as dull as the writing portion of the SAT.

The four thieves went undetected for eight years, but when the ring-leader’s employment was terminated at the victimized bank, it was only a matter of time before they were caught, sentenced and imprisoned.

In addition to prison time, the criminals must also pay restitution in the amount of $4,387,598.57 and will be relegated to watching Hawks games from a jail cell..

[via Atlanta Journal Constitution]

Image via YouTube