Ex-bank teller Darren Stephenson, of Valley Stream, charged in $1.6 million bank swindle

A former bank teller from Valley Stream has been charged in an identity theft scheme where businesses and individuals had more than $1.6 million stolen from their accounts using debit cards and wire transfers.

Darren Stephenson, 41, was arrested on Thursday in Brooklyn and charged in Manhattan federal court with one count of bank fraud conspiracy and one count of aggravated identity theft. He faces up to 30 years in prison, according to an announcement from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

No attorney was listed for Stephenson and no information about how he pleaded to the charges was included in court filings on Friday. He could not be reached for comment on Friday evening.

After Stephenson’s court appearance, U.S. attorney Jamie McDonald said, “Stephenson exploited his employment at a bank to feed sensitive customer information to his co-defendants, who intercepted bank debit cards and posed as bank customers over the phone and in person.”

Stephenson, while working as a teller at the Westbury branch of an unnamed bank, provided personal identifying information, such as the maiden name and school associated with a customer’s account, to his co-conspirator Catora Noel, 42, of Brooklyn. Stephenson was employed by the bank, which has multiple branches in the metropolitan area, between January 2022 and October 2024, federal prosecutors said.

With the information supplied by Stephenson, Noel used debit cards stolen from the postal mail to make withdrawals and wire transfers from customers’ accounts. Stephenson also directed Noel to certain tellers at the Westbury branch when impersonating customers.

Stephenson was paid an unspecified amount by Noel, FBI special agent Melwin Geevarghese wrote in an 18-page complaint.

Between July 2022 and September 2024, Noel relied on information supplied by Stephenson and another co-conspirator, Imani-Kai Brown, 33, also of Brooklyn, to conduct or attempt to conduct 29 fraudulent transactions — all at Stephenson’s bank, the complaint states.

Together, more than $1.6 million was stolen from 18 accounts. More than $40,500 was used to purchase Apple products at two stores in April 2024, according to the complaint.

Noel and Brown also couldn’t be reached for comment on Friday and court filings didn’t list attorneys for them.

Noel and Brown were both charged with one count of bank fraud conspiracy and one count of aggravated identity theft. Noel also was charged with one count of access device fraud.

Court filings didn’t say on Friday how the pair pleaded to the charges. Each faces a maximum of 30 years in prison.

The fraud scheme ended in September 2024 when Noel was arrested by police in Memphis, Tennessee, while impersonating a customer to make two large wire transfers, according to the complaint.

After the defendants’ court appearances this week, FBI assistant director-in-charge James C. Barnacle Jr. said they “spent years targeting and exploiting dozens of U.S. businesses and innocent victims,” many of them New Yorkers.

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.