Austin bank employee stole over $1 million from customer, feds say

A former Austin bank employee was sentenced to federal prison Thursday for stealing more than $1 million from a customer, according to officials with the Department of Justice.

Paola Gallego, 40, of Round Rock, was sentenced to five years in prison and asked to pay $1.4 million to Capital One Bank, which had reimbursed the victim for the losses, federal officials said. She pleaded guilty in May to one count of bank fraud.

Gallego began servicing the Capital One accounts of an elderly Austin couple in April 2014, officials said. Two years later, Gallego helped one of them open a Wells Fargo Bank account with $400,000 the victim had withdrawn.

Over the next two weeks, Gallego spent nearly $100,000 on personal and family expenditures, federal officials said. Wells Fargo closed that account on suspicions of elder abuse.

Gallego and the victim subsequently opened another joint checking account, this time at Chase Bank, officials said. Gallego told a Chase Bank employee that she was her victim’s caretaker and a stay-at-home mother, which was false. Between October 2016 and April 2017, the victim withdrew $1.2 million from the joint Capital One account via cashier’s checks with the understanding that Gallego would deposit those funds into their joint account at Chase Bank for investment purposes.

Instead, officials said, Gallego deposited those checks into her own Chase Bank account and used the money for personal expenses, including a Hawaiian vacation.

Gallego has agreed to liquidate and remit certain assets and properties to be applied toward the restitution she owes the bank, officials said.