Ex-Citigroup exec guilty in $22M scheme

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NEW YORK, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A former Citigroup Inc. executive pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $22 million from the company and wiring the money to his personal bank account.

Gary Foster, 35, a former Citigroup vice president who pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court to bank fraud charges, faces up to 10 years in prison as part of a plea deal, the New York Post reported.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Yaeger said Foster could also be fined as much as $44 million.

Prosecutors said the scheme began in 2003 and continued into this year.

Foster admitted he had written e-mails and sent faxes to order the transfers be wired from internal company accounts to his personal bank account, the Post said.

He listed fake contract or deal numbers to make the transfers appear legitimate, prosecutors said.

Foster, who is legally blind, used some of the money for luxury cars, a home in Rockefeller Center and a mansion in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., the newspaper reported.

The U.S. attorney's office has seized $16 million in assets.

Foster had worked at Citigroup for 12 years before quitting in January and was arrested this summer at Kennedy Airport in New York as he returned from Bangkok.