Bank Officials

A former vice president of Hebron Savings Bank in Wicomico County was sentenced to 18 months in prison for embezzlement and ordered to pay $456,665 in restitution, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Wanda Henderson, 56, of Westover had used her position at the bank, including her role as executive assistant to president, to manipulate bank records and receive fraudulent loans over a period from 2005 until April 2011, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. Over that time, Henderson had secured 20 fraudulent loans for herself and family members worth more than $680,000, with most of that ending in default, prosecutors said.

A former vice president of Hebron Savings Bank in Wicomico County was sentenced to 18 months in prison for embezzlement and ordered to pay $456,665 in restitution, federal prosecutors said Thursday. Wanda Henderson, 56, of Westover had used her position at the bank, including her role as executive assistant to president, to manipulate bank records and receive fraudulent loans over a period from 2005 until April 2011, according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland. Over that time, Henderson had secured 20 fraudulent loans for herself and family members worth more than $680,000, with most of that ending in default, prosecutors said.

An Owings Mills man has been charged with attempted felony theft after claiming to bank officials that he was a Ravens football player so he could get a $7,500 loan, Howard County police said. Damion L. Harrington, 26, of the 4300 block of Flinthill Drive was arrested Friday at Norwest Financial Center in the 9100 block of Baltimore National Pike in Ellicott City, police said. He was also charged Friday with forgery and identity theft. According to charging documents, a man walked into the bank Feb. 28 and told a loan officer that he was Herman Jay Graham, a Baltimore Ravens running back.

Lucy B. Henson, a retired Carroll County Bank and Trust Co. official who earlier had worked for Maryland National Bank, died Jan. 17 of myelodysplastic anemia at her Timonium home. She was 84. Lusitania Benedetto, daughter of Italian immigrant tailors, was born and raised in Wilmington, Del. After graduating from Wilmington High School in 1944, she began her college studies at George Washington University. Deciding she wanted to become a teacher, she transferred to Wilson Teachers College, now the University of the District of Columbia, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1950.

First National Bank's branch in Greenmount is to be replaced by a drive-up automated teller machine by the end of the summer, bank officials confirmed yesterday.The Hanover Pike office, which is scheduled to close Sept. 2, will be consolidated with the Hampstead branch, said Peter Floeckher, regional vice president for First National's northern region."Banks are opening more and more as retail outlets, selling financial products," he said. "We want to grow in new areas of the county, but before we put up new stores, we have to see where we can consolidate."

Eastern Savings Bank of Hunt Valley sought to calm nervous depositors yesterday after an erroneous television news report said the bank could close amid financial troubles. Though later corrected, the mistake sparked dozens of calls to the bank and illustrated how anxious consumers feel about financial institutions after a week in which one major bank failed and federal regulators stepped in to rescue mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Baltimore ABC News affiliate WMAR-TV aired the report about Eastern during its noon newscast.

The Farm Credit Bank of Baltimore is preparing to sell its Baltimore County headquarters as part of a planned merger with a sister institution in South Carolina.The bank's three-story building and surrounding 120 acres is notable because it represents one of the largest existing office properties to come on the market in the past five years.Real estate analysts expect the state's largest agricultural lender will receive at least $12 million for the Sparks headquarters building and adjacent land, based on recent comparable sales.

Until last week, the defenders of the 74-year-old Randallstown Community Building were worried it might be demolished - even with its new historical landmark status. But the building's owner, Bank of America, has promised to help find a buyer who will preserve the stone building at Liberty and Offutt roads. Leaders of Fieldstone Community Group met last week with bank officials after hearing that the bank might sell the building to someone willing to pay the county's $100,000 fine for razing a landmark, said Susan Carr-Spiccioli, the group's historian.

Deutsche Bank AG is shifting two high-profile units from Baltimore to New York, as the company pushes forward on initiatives to boost competitiveness and streamline operations, bank officials confirmed yesterday. The German bank - parent to the former Alex. Brown & Sons of Baltimore - is also continuing to add local employees. "There is no underlying plan ... to exit this town," said David M. DiPietro, a Deutsche Bank vice chairman who heads the locally based Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown Private Client Division.

MOSCOW -- The men in camouflage fatigues and ski masks, armed with powerful automatic rifles and grenade launchers, were clearly on serious business -- but the frantic management of Moscow's most powerful and politically well-connected bank spent all of yesterday trying to figure out who they were and what they wanted.They followed Vladimir Gusinsky, president of Most Bank, from his home to his office yesterday morning. They spent the daylight hours in parked cars, across the street from bank headquarters, at the front of the Russian White House.

Robert Lee Taylor, a retired Maryland National Bank official and freelance writer, died April 18 of pneumonia at his Timonium residence. He was 91. Mr. Taylor, the son of a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad worker and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton. After graduating in 1936 from Loyola High School, he attended Strayer Business College. In 1942, Mr. Taylor enlisted in the Army Air Forces, where he served in the intelligence section of the 2 n d Air Division at Shipdham Air Force Base in England.

The economic downturn that has caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes and sense of financial well-being has also produced a drastic increase in the number of people who go to bed hungry at night. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last week that nearly 50 million Americans - including almost a quarter of the nation's children - lacked consistent access to enough to eat in 2008. That was the highest figure recorded since the department began keeping such statistics in 1995.

When Jan Darrah chose a place to do her banking about 10 years ago, she picked Provident Bank because it was small and was based right here in town. "I like to do my business locally as much as possible," the Butchers Hill art teacher said, "because I like to give my money to local business people." Yesterday, however, she learned that her bank is no longer as small or as local, after Buffalo, N.Y.-based M&T Bank Corp. agreed to purchase Provident Bankshares Corp., the largest remaining Baltimore-based banking company, in a deal worth $401 million.

Eastern Savings Bank of Hunt Valley sought to calm nervous depositors yesterday after an erroneous television news report said the bank could close amid financial troubles. Though later corrected, the mistake sparked dozens of calls to the bank and illustrated how anxious consumers feel about financial institutions after a week in which one major bank failed and federal regulators stepped in to rescue mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Baltimore ABC News affiliate WMAR-TV aired the report about Eastern during its noon newscast.

WASHINGTON -- Leading governments of Europe, mounting a new campaign to push Paul D. Wolfowitz from his job as World Bank president, signaled yesterday that they were willing to let the United States choose the bank's next chief, but only if Wolfowitz stepped down soon, European officials said. European officials have indicated they want to end the tradition of the U.S. picking the World Bank leader. But now the officials are hoping to enlist American help in persuading Wolfowitz to resign voluntarily, rather than be rebuked or ousted.

WASHINGTON -- Arriving as president of the World Bank in the summer of 2005, Paul D. Wolfowitz told colleagues that he was eager to tackle poverty in Africa and corruption in aid. But almost immediately he became consumed by frustrating negotiations with bank officials over the status of his companion, an employee at the bank, documents released this month show. Now these documents are at the center of the World Bank's inquiry into his conduct and Wolfowitz's defense, both of which will be presented at the World Bank's board of directors tomorrow.

First Mariner Bancorp, the Baltimore parent of First Mariner Bank, reported yesterday a nearly 60 percent increase in second-quarter net income and assets.First Mariner said it earned $241,619, or 8 cents a share, for the quarter that ended June 30, up from $153,595, or 5 cents a share, for the same period last year. Assets increased to $563.1 million from $353.0 million.The banking company also said its board of directors declared a cash dividend of 2 cents a common share payable Aug. 31 to shareholders of record on Aug. 17."

WASHINGTON -- Arriving as president of the World Bank in the summer of 2005, Paul D. Wolfowitz told colleagues that he was eager to tackle poverty in Africa and corruption in aid. But almost immediately he became consumed by frustrating negotiations with bank officials over the status of his companion, an employee at the bank, documents released this month show. Now these documents are at the center of the World Bank's inquiry into his conduct and Wolfowitz's defense, both of which will be presented at the World Bank's board of directors tomorrow.

WASHINGTON -- Paul D. Wolfowitz, while serving as deputy secretary of defense, personally recommended that Shaha Ali Riza, his female companion, be awarded a contract for travel to Iraq in 2003 to advise on setting up a new government, says a previously undisclosed inquiry by the Pentagon's inspector general. The inquiry, as described by a senior Pentagon official, concluded that there was no wrongdoing in Wolfowitz's role in the hiring of Riza by Science Applications International Corp.