Six months after he was arrested on charges of trying to defraud a Shrewsbury bank branch out of $93,000, a Middletown man has been indicted on related charges.
Sandy Masselli, 48, faces charges of theft by deception and forgery, according to an announcement by Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter Warshaw.
A Monmouth County grand jury issued the indictment Wednesday, following an investigation by the prosecutor’s office and Shrewsbury police.
The indictment alleges Masselli engaged in check-kiting, an illegal practice in which checks backed by insufficient funds are deposited in an account, followed by withdrawals made before the shortage of funds becomes evident to the bank.
From the announcement:
It was determined that Masselli deposited checks drawn against an E-Trade account and
two accounts with the Bank of Montreal into three separate Chase Bank accounts. The E-Trade
and Bank of Montreal accounts did not have sufficient funds to cover the checks written or had
already been closed at the time Masselli deposited the checks into the Chase Bank accounts. A
financial analysis by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office revealed that $351,771.00 worth
of bad checks had been deposited by Masselli into the three Chase accounts. Masselli was able
to take advantage of the float and withdraw a total of $92,961.50 against those deposits.
Furthermore, the investigation revealed that Masselli opened the E-Trade Bank account in the
name of a company called First American Financial and provided a fictitious name as an
authorized agent on the account. Masselli then signed that fraudulent name on multiple E-Trade
checks drawn against the account.
Masselli is free on $100,000 bail and was required to surrender his passport at the time of his arrest in September. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison, according to the announcement.
Here’s the full announcement: 031611-masselli-indict
