Citigroup ex-VP arrested in NYC on fraud charges
Headline Legal News
A former Citigroup vice president embezzled $19.2 million from the bank in a one-man "inside job" involving a series of secret money transfers, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Gary Foster, 35, of Englewood Cliffs, N.J., surrendered Sunday at John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Bangkok. He was released Tuesday on $800,000 bond after appearing in federal court in Brooklyn to face bank fraud charges carrying a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
Foster had been traveling in Southeast Asia when he received word of the case, defense attorney Isabelle Kirshner said after the court appearance.
"As soon as he became aware they were looking for him, he voluntarily contacted the FBI and arranged to return," Kirshner said.
Officials at Citigroup Inc. — where Foster was vice president of the treasury finance department until quitting in January — said in a statement that they were "outraged by the actions of this former employee" and hoped to see him "prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Foster "used his knowledge of bank operations to commit the ultimate inside job," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
According to a criminal complaint, Foster's department financed loans and processed wire transfers within Citigroup. From May 2009 through the end of last year, Foster siphoned funds from various Citigroup accounts, placed them in the bank's cash account and then wired the money into his private account at another bank in New York, the complaint alleged.
In one November 2010 transaction, Foster wired $3.9 million from a Citigroup fund in Baltimore to his New York account, the complaint says. That fraudulent transfer and seven others went undetected until a recent internal audit, it said.
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.