Upper Marlboro woman sentenced to two years for bank fraud

Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2007

Upper Marlboro woman sentenced to two years for bank fraud

by Andrea Noble | Staff Writer

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An Upper Marlboro woman who pleaded guilty to bank fraud totaling over $600,000 was sentenced in U.S. District Court Monday to 24 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release.

Over a year and a half period, Rebecca Biglow, 35, issued more than $600,000 in company checks from two employers to pay off her mortgage and personal expenses.

According to her guilty plea, while Biglow was employed as a loan funder for Pinnacle Settlement Services, Inc. in Greenbelt, she drew money from a company account in June 2005 after she was hired, and again in April 2006, for her personal benefit.

The first check, for almost $295,000 was made payable to herself by forging the signatures of other Pinnacle employees. The second check for nearly $301,000 was made payable to a creditor to pay off her mortgage.

Biglow would find checks payable to the creditors of the company’s clients that had not been negotiated or cleared and then voided the checks, later reissuing new checks for the same amount to herself from the company account.

In addition to the use of the Pinnacle accounts, Rebecca Biglow subsequently became employed at Land Title, LLC in November 2006, and used an account at that company to draw a cumulative total of $31,847.02 from company funds for her personal use. Between Nov. 29 and Dec. 4, 2006, she issued nine checks from Land Title account funds.

E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.