Local News in Brief : Money Laundering Term
A former Beverly Hills bank loan officer convicted of laundering $71,000 in embezzled Screen Actors Guild funds has been placed on four years’ probation and ordered to make $6,000 restitution.
Vivian Maria Morales Wright, 34, was also ordered by Superior Court Judge Robert Altman to perform 200 hours of community service. Wright pleaded no contest last month to one count of grand theft in a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office under which 12 counts of forgery were dismissed.
Prosecutors said Wright used her position at First Pacific Bank to help Screen Actors Guild employee Victoria Hayes steal more than $71,000 from the union’s emergency fund.
Hayes, 33, is a fugitive. Prosecutors said that Hayes, while working as a membership assistance clerk in 1985, produced false grant applications, purportedly from actors, then deposited the checks into First Pacific accounts opened under false names.
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