Former Brink's worker pleads guilty in theft of $196K worth of quarters
An Alabama man has agreed to plead guilty to bank theft for stealing $196,000 worth of quarters from Brink’s Company at its Birmingham branch where he worked for less than two months.
Stephen Lancaster Dennis, a money processing manager at Brink’s, was charged after an April 2014 audit of bags that were supposed to each contain $50,000 in quarters, according to a press release and a plea agreement. Four of the bags contained mostly beads, with $1,000 in quarters placed so they would be visible through a plastic window in the bags. CNN, Al.com and the Washington Post covered the plea agreement.
The missing quarters belonged to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and were part of the Federal Reserve Coin Inventory stored by Brink’s.
Dennis had filled the plastic bags with beads on Feb. 16, a date when he wasn’t scheduled to work, the press release says. He worked at Brink’s from Jan. 1, 2014, to Feb. 20, 2014, and stole 784,000 in quarters during that time, according to the press release.
“What Mr. Dennis may have thought was a nickel and dime theft was, in the end, the equivalent of a major bank heist,” FBI special agent in charge Roger Stanton said in the press release.
U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance of the Northern District of Alabama also commented in the press release. “This defendant may have thought he had quite a haul when he took nearly $200,000 in quarters from the Federal Reserve’s coin storage at Brink’s, but now he carries a heavier load,” she said. “He must repay the money and face a federal sentence.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office told Al.com that the FBI was unable to determine what Dennis did with the stolen quarters.
