A Tiverton resident, Brenda Partin, has confessed to her involvement in a bank fraud scheme targeting a Rhode Island bank. The announcement was made by Acting United States Attorney Sara Miron Bloom. Partin, aged 54, entered a guilty plea for attempted bank fraud and is set to receive her sentence on June 10, 2025. The sentencing will be determined by a federal district judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other legal factors.
Court documents reveal that in May 2022, an email account belonging to a construction company in Tennessee was compromised. This led to a global snack-food company being misled into changing its vendor payment details to direct funds to a Rhode Island bank account owned by Partin.
From August 15 to September 19, 2022, four payments totaling nearly $225,000 were mistakenly sent to Partin's account instead of the intended recipient. Withdrawals from this account began almost immediately after the deposits. On September 8, 2022, Partin used $26,470.05 from the account for purchasing an automobile registered under her name. Additionally, she instructed an associate to open another local bank account where $30,000 was transferred from the initial account. Over the following months, both accounts saw numerous withdrawals and purchases.
By December 5, 2022, the second account was closed with about $108,000 remaining. For nine months thereafter, Partin and others tried various means to persuade bank employees to release these funds. She falsely claimed different sources for the money including settlements from car accidents and financial support from her fiancé or an associate supposedly working in Turkey who had leukemia.
Assistant United States Attorney Juliane Klein is prosecuting this case which was investigated by the Rhode Island State Police Financial Crimes Unit along with the FBI’s Rhode Island Complex Financial Crimes Task Force.
