Ex-Bank Official Sentenced for Laundering Drug Money

A former assistant manager at a Santa Ana bank was sentenced Monday to serve six months in federal prison for her role in laundering money from Colombian cocaine sales.

U.S. District Judge Pamela Ann Rymer also ordered Gladys Ayala, 47, of Irvine to work full time for two years as a volunteer in some kind of community service organization.

In December, a federal court jury convicted Ayala of laundering about $255,000 in proceeds from two cocaine deals.

In arguing for leniency, Ayala’s attorney, Richard H. Kirschner, said she had an “impeccable” 20-year service record with the Bank of America in Santa Ana.

He said Ayala had “captured the American dream” by working her way up from a clerk to an assistant manager and loan officer. And, Kirschner said, Ayala did not profit from her crime, receiving only a pair of inexpensive earrings, “two cheap emeralds and a cheap camera” for her efforts.

“I don’t think capitalizing on the American dream goes as far as the concealment of great sums of money from taxation,” said Rymer, adding that “there is no doubt in my mind that Mrs. Ayala knew exactly what she was doing.”

Rymer also sentenced Waldyr A. Pizzotti, a Brazilian national who asked Ayala to help launder the money, to six months in prison and ordered him to perform two years of full-time community service.

In 1983 and 1984, Pizzotti and others allegedly laundered about $2.6 million for a major Colombian-based cocaine trafficking organization, according to court records.

The government alleged that Ayala opened several bank accounts at her bank branch for Pizzotti and Gamboa. She then advised the men to keep their deposits and withdrawals under $10,000 to avoid the required filings of currency transactions and reports to the Internal Revenue Service, according to the indictment.

Ayala introduced Pizzotti to Luis Gamboa, the informant who helped the government built its case against Ayala and Pizzotti. Gamboa, who was facing fraud charges in Orange County, was promised full immunity from prosecution on fraud and drug charges in exchange for his cooperation on the federal money-laundering case, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Gordon A. Greenberg.

Both Ayala and Pizzotti declined to comment after their sentences were imposed.