Misappropriation of Payments to a Business

[Sc gate keeper]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: south carolina

Somebody has opened up a bank account in as sole proprietor in my business name and has been taking my mail and checks and depositing them into this new account.

I have proof of all the checks deposited and bank has confirmed the criminal has opened acct under my business name.

Isnt the bank suppossed to verify articles of incorporation?
Contact secretery of state to verify business name etc?
The money is gone over 300k and there are several felony accounts against the criminal.
The sherriff dept. Is telling me they can only prosecute the criminal and cannot do anything to help with getting money back from the major bank and I would need to hire an atty. If I wanted to pursue this.

[jk]

How is this person getting your mail and checks?

how do you know what’s been deposited? To know that it would mean you have access to the account records. If you have access to the account what’s stopping you from withdrawing the money and closing the account?

[budwad]

How could you possibly not have known that something was amiss when you were not receiving payments from your customers or clients to rack up 300K in missing funds.

If you are a corporation and have a corporate seal, that seal would have to be on the application to open a business account. Was it on the application?

[Mr. Knowitall]

So the issue is that you know who stole your money, but the person is a deadbeat and you're hoping to make the bank cover your losses? Unfortunately, you're not likely to find an avenue for relief against the bank. No, they're not obligated to verify all of the otherwise legitimate-appearing documents that are presented to them by somebody who is opening a bank account, nor would reviewing the articles of incorporation be helpful even if they named the officers of the corporation at the time of incorporation.

[Sc gate keeper]

I was a little reluctant to give up too much information until our first preliminary hearing took place and all of information was out on the table now. So this is the situation.
My office manager had opened up a bank account using my business name as a sole proprietor and was depositing checks into this account made out to my business and then was "Cooking the books" and marking these invoices as paid in the quickbooks accounting software.
There are several other breach of trust items that I have found which are cut and dry like giving herself a raise, cutting herself bonus checks, atm withdrawals etc. but the majority of the money that was stolen was deposited into a major bank where she banks.

We has a cd with over 1000 files on it from the bank which the sheriff department has and the bank has admitted verbally that she will be going to jail and this was clearly fraudulent account that had been opened up...
After reconciling my quickbooks and all my checking accounts and matching up all the check numbers and payments and deposits etc. I can tell that there are approx. $350,000.00 in checks that were posted paid but never actually were deposited into my bank account and when we ask for a copy of the back of the check that has cleared customers account it traces back to this bank where the she had opened up this bogus account.
I am told by solicitor that we have to prosecute ex employee first ...let this case run its course and then I can file a civil suit with the bank later possibly to see if the bank was at fault for allowing her to open up this account without doing there due diligence.
My concerns are how much time has passed...and want to make sure I am taking proper steps and not missing anything...it took the bank 3 months to release the cd after we gave them subpoena ...
She has moved the money out of the account, we have already been to preliminary hearing...6 felony counts ...we are moving to trial I guess is the next step.
Anybody been down this road that can help?

[jk]

Unless she took the money out as cash there is a paper trail.

I think your attorney is not advising you well. You don’t want to wait to chase the trail until after the prosecution. Not only can you not be 100% certain she will be prosecuted (stranger things have happened), a prosecution can be lengthy. Unless she is setting in jail and even if so she doesn’t give somebody else the info to move the money again, well, time is not your friend.

[adjusterjack]

then I can file a civil suit with the bank later possibly to see if the bank was at fault for allowing her to open up this account without doing there due diligence.

I think you'll find that suing the bank is a fool's errand. It'll cost you buckets of money in attorney fees and the bank is almost sure to win because the bank is as much of a victim as you are.

You're making the same mistake as many others have made. Blame the bank for the acts of the criminal because you know you can't get any money out of the criminal and the bank has plenty.

Good luck with that.