PORTLAND, Ore. - Janelle Fuston, 25, of Aloha, Oregon, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez to five years of probation and 200 hours of community service for the crime of money laundering. She was also ordered to pay $48,243 to the government in the form of a money judgment. Fuston pleaded guilty to the crime of money laundering in April of this year, and the money judgment represents a portion of the approximately $120,000 that Fuston admitted to laundering for her co-defendant and ex-boyfriend, Larry Fuentes.
Between April 2011 and April 2012, Fuston, who was employed at the time by First Tech Federal Credit Union in Beaverton, agreed to launder over $120,000 in Fuentes’s drug proceeds. Defendant Fuston admitted she knew that Fuentes had no legitimate income, that she knew the cash he was providing her constituted drug proceeds, and that she deposited the drug money into multiple accounts held in her name at First Tech Federal Credit Union. She further admitted to establishing one of the accounts at First Tech in her name for the sole purpose of storing those drug proceeds, and to breaking up the drug proceeds into multiple deposits because ATMs could only accept a limited number of bills at a time.
Before their crime was discovered, Fuston and Fuentes spent all but approximately $11,000 of the laundered drug proceeds, enjoying the fruits of their illegal conduct in the form of vacations, tanning salons, and other luxuries. Fuston was fired from her job at First Tech once her conduct was discovered, and her plea agreement provides that she is prohibited from working in the financial industry for ten years following her conviction.
Fuston’s co-defendant, Larry Fuentes, has also pleaded guilty to the crime of money laundering, and is scheduled for sentencing on February 4, 2014.
The investigation of this case was conducted by the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Interdiction Task Force, including the Portland Police Bureau’s Drugs and Vice Division, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Katie Lorenz.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
