Citibank must pay nearly $3.5 million to a Queens stroke victim after missing blatant signs of fraud in her accounts — then allegedly hiding evidence in the court case that uncovered the theft.
The possibly precedent-setting Dec. 19 decision from Queens Supreme Court Justice Bernice Siegal sanctioned the bank $10,000 for “concealing critical evidence for over 14 months in violation of court orders” in the case of 80-year-old Leileth Faye Graham — who ironically was once a legal secretary for a firm that repped the banking behemoth.
The bank’s alleged feet-dragging in the ongoing 2023 proceeding — and apparent refusal to refund Graham the more than $772,000 stolen from her accounts — also prompted Siegal to slap Citibank with treble damages under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act.
Citibank has denied wrongdoing and appealed the order — leaving Graham’s family praying she eventually gets her money.
“My hope is that something will come through, so that she gets to enjoy something out of it before she passes away,” said Graham’s niece, Ingrid Gayle, who now oversees her care.
“Because that would really be sad, that we fight for her to get back her money, and that she doesn’t even get to enjoy a thousand of it.”
The bank was ordered to pay the whopping sum “for failure to investigate or to return the funds removed from [her] account without consent or authority,” court papers show.
The 1978 law protects consumers in electronic transactions, but Citibank allegedly sat on its hands while another niece, Joan Hope Bowden, allegedly made 211 withdrawals in Massachusetts where she lived — a state where the legally blind, bed-bound Graham didn’t travel, according to court papers.
About $135,000 was taken from those withdrawals, and 15 wire transfers bled another $638,000, court papers showed.
“Ok Citibank you all didn’t see this?” wondered Gayle. “This is not normal. You’re calling her, you’re not getting her, why continue the transaction?”
The accused thief used Graham’s cash to pay for vacations in Jamaica, a Washington DC property for her daughter and son-in-law, and doled out money to her own sister and grandkids, a court-appointed evaluator determined.
“Had Citibank properly followed its own security procedures on the Citibank accounts following the ATM withdrawals, the account would have been flagged, thereby preventing the subsequent wire transfers,” the court found.
Graham emigrated to the US from her native Jamaica in the 1970s, getting a business administration degree from Manhattan College in 1984 and in 1992, a bachelor’s degree from Pace University.
She worked at Time Warner, Time Magazine, her niece said, and eventually as a legal secretary for the white shoe law firm Shearman & Sterling — which repped Citibank for decades.
Graham, whom Gayle said loved to cook, and “spent conservatively,” never married or had kids, buying her Rego Park condo in the 1980s.
Her health began to fail in February 2020 after a stroke, Gayle said.
“She recovered. She would talk — she was a no nonsense person. She went to rehab, she came back.
“Then we started calling and we weren’t getting her,” Gayle recalled.
The Florida resident visited her “Auntie Faye” and found “deplorable conditions,” according to court papers, including bedsores on the older woman and a filthy apartment.
“There was spoiled food in the fridge,” she claimed.
Gayle sounded the alarm, triggering an Adult Protective Services probe and the appointment of legal guardian Abraham Mazloumi to oversee Graham’s property. She now relies on Medicaid to survive, according to court docs.
The bank not only ignored “clear red flags” during the theft, it allegedly failed to produce witnesses, recordings and other evidence in the case that could have led to an early settlement, the court found.
The case is a game changer for all financial institutions in New York, “because it establishes clearly that the bank is liable for unauthorized transactions,” said attorney Raymond Dowd, who represents Graham’s legal guardian. “The bank bears the burden of proof not the consumer. This is huge.”
The money owed Graham represents a tripling of the $772,000 stolen, plus $242,828 in interest and $150,000 in damages.
If the money was there, Gayle said, she would have renovated her aunt’s apartment and gotten lifts to help her get out of bed, reconfigured the bathroom and gotten a specialized vehicle to take her places.
But there’s no money for that now.
“That’s what really bothers me,” she said.
A source said the bank doesn’t have any of Graham’s money — and questioned technicalities in the case, including whether the judgment exceeded the bounds of the proceeding.
Citibank declined comment to The Post.
