Bank Denies Aides Got Improper Gifts

The Bank of Boston on Tuesday denied a report that two former employees improperly accepted small gifts from mobsters in return for a place on the bank’s list of companies whose large cash transactions do not have to be reported to the government.

Bank spokesman Wayne Taylor said the bank stands by its statement last week that no employees unduly profited from the bank’s dealings with the Angiulo family, which authorities allege to be New England’s most powerful organized crime syndicate.

Report in Paper

Taylor also denied a report in the New York Times that the two former employees are under investigation by a federal grand jury on suspicion that they may have accepted gifts from the Angiulos.

“As we have said in one press conference or another, we are not aware that the bank or any of its employees are the subject of any ongoing investigation,” he said.

Taylor repeated Chairman William Brown’s statement last week that the bank might have been used “unwittingly” to launder mob money and that no employees benefited by any dealings with the Angiulos.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the New England Organized Crime Task Force is trying to determine if two recently retired employees, a teller and branch manager, helped the Angiulos launder money at a branch in the North End of the city--near businesses run by the Angiulo family.

Patrick Walsh, the task force prosecutor who led the Bank of Boston probe, did not return repeated calls to his office Tuesday.

Transfer of Money

The two retired employees--Gloria Cushing, 59, branch manager, and Howard Matheson, 64, a teller--are under investigation about whether they accepted small cash payments to put two Angiulo-owned companies on a list that exempted their cash transactions from being reported to the Internal Revenue Service, the paper said.

Such exemptions can permit transfer of money from illicit operations into legitimate businesses, where it could not be traced. A 1980 federal law requires banks to report all cash transactions above $10,000, although certain retail businesses that normally deal in large amounts of cash can be exempted.

Matheson, who retired last month after 36 years with the bank, told the paper that he had accepted bottles of whiskey at Christmas and other “little satisfactions” from the Angiulos. But he had nothing to do with drawing up the exempt list, he told the paper.

Brown said last week that branch managers recommend customers for the exempt list, and two other bank officers review the recommendations.

Brown said he could not explain why a branch manager would recommend reputed mobsters for the list.

“I cannot speak for our branch manager,” Brown said. “I do not know what went through her mind.”

Cushing’s husband told the paper his wife would not comment on the investigation.