Delhi banker gets prison for thefts

A Delhi woman on Wednesday was sentenced to two years and three months in federal prison for stealing from a Ceres bank where she worked, the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento announced Thursday.

Norma Pena, 38, pleaded guilty in March to 14 counts of a federal grand jury indictment, charging her with embezzlement by a bank employee and criminal forfeiture.

From March 2009 to February 2010, Pena used her position as an assistant branch manager at the Citibank in Ceres to embezzle from the bank, according to prosecutors.

As part of her plea agreement, Pena admitted she created her own teller cash drawer, then took money intended to be placed there.

To cover the thefts, she made electronic transfers from the drawer into the bank's automated-teller-machine vault systems, without transferring any money from her cash drawer to the ATM vaults.

Pena would then oversee the cash counts of the ATM vaults and other cash counts at the branch, in which she would cover up the amount of cash missing.

At her sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Lawrence O'Neill ordered Pena to pay more than $217,000 in restitution.