Montclair banker guilty in client thefts



Linda Foss, the former branch manager at a
U.S. Bank on Mountain Boulevard,
was fired for taking funds out of an
elderly customer's account.

A banker who once led a merchant group in Oakland's upscale Montclair neighborhood pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing millions from clients, many of whom are elderly, and is expected to be sentenced to 12 years behind bars.

Linda Foss, 62, the former president of the Montclair Village Association, entered guilty pleas in Alameda County Superior Court to five counts of elder theft, two counts of grand theft and one count of money laundering.

She is expected to be sentenced Oct. 3 to 12 years in state prison and will be ordered to pay restitution to 15 victims in an amount to be determined, authorities said. Her attorney was not immediately available for comment.

Foss was fired as branch manager at a U.S. Bank on Mountain Boulevard in March. She then took the same position at a First Republic Bank. The investigation by the district attorney's office began after officials with both banks came forward to report suspicious activity, Inspector Ron Miller wrote in a court affidavit.

When confronted about missing funds from one alleged victim's account at U.S. Bank - which held $353,000 instead of an expected $972,000 - Foss "claimed that one elder was paying the other elder back for monies borrowed during the Oakland hills fire" in 1991, Miller wrote.

However, he wrote, the two account holders did not know each other. Investigators determined that the mailing address for both victims' bank statements had been changed to the address of U.S. Bank.

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Montclair banker guilty in client thefts