Bank exec gets prison in $2-million theft from client account
A member of the founding family of Farmers & Merchants Bank was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for stealing nearly $2 million from a customer’s account.
Matthew J. Walker was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution as part of the sentence handed down Monday by U.S. District Judge Andrew J. Guilford at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.
Walker, who managed Farmers & Merchants’ Laguna Hills branch, pleaded guilty last year to theft by a bank officer.
He stole the money by taking advances from a customer’s line of credit in 2009 and 2010 and made interest payments on the loan to conceal the theft. He said he used the stolen money on an investment that failed.
Once the theft was discovered, Walker resigned from the bank, prosecutors noted in a sentencing memorandum.
The U.S. attorney’s office had requested the 41-month sentence, saying Walker abused the trust given to him by the bank in a desperate attempt “to hit it big” by investing in a start-up company.
“Much like gambling, defendant used the money on a start-up company that he was intimately involved in and where he could win or lose. Like most risky gambles, he ultimately lost it all,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jennifer Waier said in a sentencing memorandum.
“It was motivated by greed and for no other reason.”
Walker’s attorney asked for one year in prison, noting that he had accepted responsibility by resigning his job and pleading guilty to the criminal charge.
Matthew is the fifth generation of the Walker family involved in Farmers & Merchants, which was founded in 1907 by rancher C.J. Walker. He got his start at the bank as a coin roller 15 years ago, according to a biography on the website of Chapman University, where he earned a master’s degree in business administration in 2008.
Based in Long Beach, the bank has more than 20 branches in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
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