NEW HAVEN – The former general counsel and corporate secretary of Webster Bank pleaded guilty Friday, Dec. 20 to charges of embezzling $7.4 million from the bank and its predecessor from 2013-2023, U.S. District Attorney for the District of Connecticut Vanessa Roberts Avery announced.
James Blose, 56, of Fairfield, waived his right to be indicted and pleaded guilty in New Haven federal court to offenses stemming from a decade-long embezzlement scheme at banks where he served as general counsel and other high-ranking positions.
Blose pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 30 years, and one count of engaging in illegal monetary transactions, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence. He is released on a $250,000 bond pending sentencing, which is scheduled for March 13 in Hartford.
From approximately 2013 until Webster Bank discovered his scheme and his employment was terminated in February 2023, Blose defrauded his employers in various ways, Avery stated.
In certain commercial loan transactions where the bank was the lender, Blose fraudulently retained for himself portions of closing costs, including legal fees. In certain real estate transactions in which Webster was the seller, Blose retained portions of the sale proceeds for himself.
For some of the real estate transactions, Blose created false documents in order to hide his theft from the bank.
Blose also stole from the bank in other ways. As part of the scheme, used his attorney trust accounts to make personal expenditures, and to transfer funds to accounts in the names of business entities he created and controlled, and then used those funds for his personal benefit. Through this scheme, Blose stole a total of about $7.4 million from his employers.
According to court documents and statements made in court, from approximately 2013 to January 2022, Blose was an attorney and held high-ranking positions, including general counsel, at Hudson Valley Bank and Sterling National Bank. He worked for Webster Bank after it acquired Sterling in 2022 until February 2023.
Prior to joining Hudson Valley Bank, Blose was a partner at the law firm Griffin, Coogan, Blose, Sulzer & Horgan, P.C., located in Bronxville, New York, from December 2003-October 2013, where his primary role was outside general counsel to Hudson Valley Holding Corp. and Hudson Valley Bank.
The investigation had been conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection’s Office of the Inspector General. Financial crimes investigators from Webster Bank assisted the investigation.
Blose, who lives in the Southport section of Fairfield, owns a home that was appraised by the Town of Fairfield at $1.6 million. That property was transferred to him and his wife in February 2022 from Saddlebrook Acquisitions, which originally purchased it for $575,000 in September 2020.
In addition to his banking job, Blose was the founder of Titans Baseball Inc., a nonprofit run from his Fairfield home and later from a Trumbull address. The company, which is a preparatory travel baseball and softball program, recruits and trains players from Maryland to Maine to play ball at the collegiate and professional levels. It was registered as a 501 c 3 in 2010.
