FORMER SETTLEMENT COMPANY EMPLOYEE SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS FOR BANK FRAUD
Issued Over $600,000 in Company Checks to Pay Off Her Mortgage and Personal Expenses

Greenbelt, Maryland - U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Rebecca Biglow, age 35, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, yesterday to 24 months in prison followed by 5 years of supervised release for bank fraud, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

According to her guilty plea, Biglow used her employment as a loan funder at a settlement company in Greenbelt from June 2005 to May 2006 to gain access to settlement files and find checks payable to the creditors of the company's clients that had not been negotiated or cleared. She would then void the checks, and reissue new checks in the same amounts drawn on a company account and made payable to herself or her creditors.

For example, on April 28, 2006, Biglow caused a $301,037.34 check to be drawn on a company escrow account to pay off her personal mortgage loan on her residence. Similarly, on June 22, 2005, Biglow caused a $294,097.77 check to be drawn on a company escrow account which she used for her personal benefit. In each of those instances, Biglow forged the signatures of company employees with check-signing authority, including the president and managing attorney of the company.

Biglow became employed at another company in November 2006, and used an account at that company to draw funds for her personal use. Specifically, between November 29 and December 4, 2006, she issued nine checks drawn on a company account, totaling $31,847.02, which were used to pay off her personal expenses. Biglow forged the signature of a principal employee of the company on some of these checks.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their investigative work, and commended Assistant United States Attorney David I. Salem, who prosecuted the case.