{"id":287569,"date":"2023-08-30T19:25:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T00:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=287569"},"modified":"2023-08-31T12:55:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T17:55:48","slug":"addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/","title":{"rendered":"Gambling Addiction \u2018Doesn\u2019t Justify\u2019 $300K Theft by Arkansas Grandma Bank Teller"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bank teller who stole $300k from the Premier Bank of Arkansas<\/a> (PBA) was told her gambling addiction and mental health problems only partially excused her actions. She was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette<\/em><\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

\"Southland
Southland Casino, Arkansas, above, where Cooper blew her ill-gotten gains in the space of 13 months. Prosecutors said it would be a \u201cmiscarriage of justice\u201d if she avoided prison (Image: WREG.com<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Grandmother Pamela Cooper, 63, of Marion, Ark., pleaded guilty last week to one count of embezzling bank funds from the PBA branch in the city, part of the Memphis metropolitan area. PBA was acquired last year by Southern Bankcorp.<\/p>\n

An FBI investigation found that Cooper, who earned a salary of $30K per year at the branch, had lost a total of $311,925 at nearby Southland Casino<\/a>. Cooper\u2019s losing streak lasted just over a year, from November 2019 to December 2020.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She was fired from the bank on December 22, 2020, after an internal audit a month earlier revealed a $200K hole in its funds.<\/p>\n

A subsequent investigation into teller drawers and recycler machines, which dispense cash for tellers like an ATM dispenses cash to bank customers, revealed an extra $94K was missing.<\/p>\n

Internal Audit<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The only remaining area of the branch to be audited was Cooper\u2019s teller drawer, which could not be opened because she had taken leave when she heard about the audit. When it was finally opened, it contained slightly more than $5K instead of the $25K that should have been there.<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s crime would have been discovered sooner had she not transferred money from the vault to the recycler. She then cooked the books to make it appear that no money was missing, prosecutors said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The later audit found that Cooper was the only employee with access to the vault and the recycler.<\/p>\n

Chasing Losses<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Her lawyer, Molly Sullivan, emphasized that Cooper had undergone mental health counseling for her gambling addiction since her arrest.<\/p>\n

“An addiction to gambling doesn’t justify her behavior here, but I think it explains what happened,”<\/strong> Sullivan said, as reported by the Gazette. “Her access to funds and her thought process that — ‘I’ll just hit it big at the casino and pay that money back’ — that didn’t happen here, obviously.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Public defender Sullivan asked for a lenient sentence of one day in prison followed by five years of supervised release, considering Cooper\u2019s mental health problems, previous good standing, and sense of remorse.<\/p>\n

But chief prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Will Crow, said that would be a “miscarriage of justice\u201d for a defendant who had been facing up to 30 years in prison before her plea deal.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. agreed.<\/p>\n

“You can’t steal over $300,000 and not expect some prison sentence,”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bank teller who stole $300k from the Premier Bank of Arkansas (PBA) was told her gambling addiction and mental health problems only partially excused her actions. She was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. Grandmother Pamela Cooper, 63, of Marion, Ark., pleaded guilty last week to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":287570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[87786,87785,87787,84163],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAddiction \u2018Doesn\u2019t Justify\u2019 $300K Theft by Arkansas Grandma<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Premier Bank of Arkansas teller Pamela Cooper, a grandmother, gets one year and a day for $300k blown at Southland Casino.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Addiction \u2018Doesn\u2019t Justify\u2019 $300K Theft by Arkansas Grandma\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Premier Bank of Arkansas teller Pamela Cooper, a grandmother, gets one year and a day for $300k blown at Southland Casino.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-08-31T00:25:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-31T17:55:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/south.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"815\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"506\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/\",\"name\":\"Addiction \u2018Doesn\u2019t Justify\u2019 $300K Theft by Arkansas Grandma\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/south.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-08-31T00:25:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-31T17:55:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Premier Bank of Arkansas teller Pamela Cooper, a grandmother, gets one year and a day for $300k blown at Southland Casino.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/addiction-doesnt-justify-300k-theft-by-arkansas-grandma\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/south.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/south.jpg\",\"width\":815,\"height\":506,\"caption\":\"Southland Casino, Arkansas, above, where Cooper blew her ill-gotten gains in the space of 13 months. 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