United States of America v. Catora Noel, Darren Stephesnon, and Imani-Kai Brown

New York City, New York, criminal defense lawyers represent the Defendants charged with stealing the personal identifying and financial information of dozens of victims as part of a conspiracy to fraudulently take over those victims’ bank accounts and initiate over a million dollars in unauthorized wire transfers and ATM withdrawals.

Digested by Kent Morlan

Catora Noel, Darren Stephesnon, and Imani-Kai Brown engaged in a coordinated scheme to defraud financial institutions and steal over $1.6 million from the bank accounts of dozens of hardworking New Yorkers.

As part of this scheme, Stephenson exploited his employment at a bank to feed sensitive customer information to his co-defendants, who intercepted bank debit cards and posed as bank customers over the phone and in person.

The co-defendants spent years targeting and exploiting dozens of U.S. businesses and innocent victims, stealing more than $1.6 million through compromised personal and confidential information.

From at least in or about July 2022 through in or about September 2024, NOEL, STEPHENSON, and BROWN participated in an identity theft scam and related fraud operation involving primarily a bank with multiple locations in the New York metropolitan area (“Victim Institution-1”). Through the fraud scheme, one or more of the participants, including NOEL, intercepted new or replacement bank debit cards that Victim Institution-1 mailed to its customers.

The defendants unlawfully obtained customers’ bank debit cards by stealing bank debit cards from mail deposits and placing recorded calls to banks, impersonating customers by providing the customer’s name, personal identifying information (“PII”), and debit card number, and requesting that the bank mail a debit card for the customer’s account to an address accessible to the defendants or their co-conspirators. NOEL, STEPHENSON, and BROWN communicated through, among other means, text messages and an encrypted messaging application and exchanged the information, including names, PII, and bank card and account numbers, of bank customers. STEPHENSON, a former Victim Institution-1 employee, used his privileged access to customer account information to steal customer PII and provide it to his co-conspirators in furtherance of the scheme.

Among other things, NOEL then posed as bank customers of Victim Institution-1 to conduct unauthorized and fraudulent transactions, including wire transfers, teller withdrawals, and automated teller machine (“ATM”) withdrawals. Specifically, NOEL posed as bank customers by calling and visiting Victim Institution-1, providing the customer’s PII and account information, and requesting a wire transfer or withdrawal of funds from the customer’s Victim Institution-1 account to another bank account. Alternatively, NOEL would use the intercepted bank cards to conduct fraudulent withdrawals from ATM machines.

The charges contained in the Complaint are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.