Charlotte man sentenced to 12 years for defrauding Wells Fargo Bank

A Charlotte man was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison for defrauding Wells Fargo Bank and violating terms of his release on a previous federal bank fraud conviction.

In the Wells Fargo case, prosecutors said Jerry Lee Grier Jr., 38, fraudulently obtained customer account information to make cash withdrawals and transactions.

After obtaining the information, Grier contacted Wells Fargo bank tellers and other employees in Charlotte and elsewhere via cell phone. He then used the account information to impersonate legitimate Wells Fargo customers, according to court documents.

Grier often claimed to be seeking help accessing and transferring cash to various accounts, records show. He used assorted lies, including telling Wells Fargo employees that he urgently needed cash because of an emergency, according to court records.

Prosecutors haven’t said how Grier obtained the account information.

He was arrested after making a fraudulent $22,000 withdrawal at a Wells Fargo branch in Norfolk, Va. He pleaded guilty in June to one count of bank fraud.

Grier had three prior federal bank fraud convictions and numerous state fraud convictions, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad Jr. said Grier’s criminal fraud history was “unmatched by any fraud defendant” the judge had seen and reflected an “extraordinary pattern of fraudulent activity” undeterred by previous prison sentences.

Conrad also ordered Grier to pay $100,800 in restitution to Wells Fargo and serve five years of supervised release after his prison term ends.

Grier has been in federal custody since April, when he was arrested for violating terms of his supervised release from a 2011 federal bank fraud conviction.

This story was originally published December 19, 2015 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Charlotte man sentenced to 12 years for defrauding Wells Fargo Bank."