Date: Dec. 20, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov James Blose of Fairfield waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty today in New Haven federal court to offenses stemming from a decade-long embezzlement scheme at banks where he served as General Counsel and held other high-ranking positions. The announcement was made by Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut; Harry T. Chavis, Jr., Special Agent in Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in New England; Robert Fuller, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Brian Tucker, Special Agent in Charge of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s Office of the Inspector General, Eastern Region. According to court documents and statements made in court, from approximately 2013 to January 2022, Blose was an attorney and held high-ranking positions, including General Counsel, at Hudson Valley Bank and Sterling National Bank. From approximately January 2022, when Webster Bank acquired Sterling National Bank, until February 2023, Blose served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Webster Bank. From approximately 2013 until Webster Bank discovered his scheme and his employment was terminated in February 2023, Blose defrauded his employers (“The Bank”) in various ways. In certain commercial loan transactions where The Bank was the lender, Blose fraudulently retained for himself portions of closing costs, including legal fees. In certain real estate transactions in which The Bank was the seller, Blose retained portions of the sale proceeds for himself. For some of the real estate transactions, Blose created false documents in order to hide his theft from The Bank. Blose also stole from The Bank in other ways. As part of the scheme, used his attorney trust accounts to make personal expenditures, and to transfer funds to accounts in the names of business entities he created and controlled, and then used those funds for his personal benefit. Through this scheme, Blose stole approximately $7.4 million from his employers. Blose pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years, and one count of engaging in illegal monetary transactions, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years. He is released on a $250,000 bond pending sentencing, which is scheduled for March 13 in Hartford. This investigation has been conducted by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s Office of the Inspector General. Financial crimes investigators from Webster Bank assisted the investigation. This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael S. McGarry and Ross Weingarten. IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
