East Hampton Homeowner Faces Federal Sentencing

A woman accused of stealing millions of dollars from Webster Bank and using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle, including buying a $1 million waterfront home on Lake Pocotopaug in will be sentenced by a federal judge on Thursday.

Susan Curtis, 50, a former employee of Webster Bank, faces as much as 10 years in prison when she is sentenced tomorrow morning, the Hartford Courant reports.

Curtis last year pleaded guilty to federal charges that she swindled some $5 million from her bank. One of those charges includes fraudulently applying for and obtaining a $649,000 mortgage from Bank of America for the Lake Pocotopaug home. The bank is now foreclosing on that property. Curtis also pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns. She and her husband, Gary J. Stocking, had been arrested a year earlier. Curtis has been in prison for the past year awaiting sentencing.

Stocking last fall was sentenced to two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges that he helped his wife steal the money by setting up a phony real estate company and funneling bank fees into it.

Besides buying the lakefront home at 95 Day Point Road in East Hampton, the federal government says Curtis and Stocking, who live in Naugatuck, also used the stolen bank funds to buy expensive boats, cars and jewelry.