Christina Dasrath and Other Adventures with Bank Tellers

The United States of America has filed a complaint against twenty-year-old Christina Dasrath, a teller working at Sovereign Bank. She gave away the bank's security secrets to "CC-1," the unnamed bank robber listed in the affidavit as Dasrath's partner in crime. CC-1 may be unnamed in the official indictment, but he has been identified in the media as Christian A. Torres, an NYPD rookie cop that had already been caught for a whole slew of bank robberies throughout the New York and Pennsylvania area. Dasrath has since admitted to law enforcement officials of helping him with the thefts by exposing the bank's lax security system. She can now fill up her day-planner with her visits to see the Honorable Debra C. Freeman in Manhattan's Southern District Federal Court. Currently facing multiple charges, Dasrath, if convicted, could end up doing time for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, robbery, and for giving false statements to a federal agent.

In a nutshell, and according to the official indictment, back in June of 2007 CC-1 entered the Sovereign Bank and handed Dasrath a note demanding her to "empty both drawers" or else he would start shooting the employees. Dasrath complied by giving CC-1 approximately $16,300 in cash. Then, later during the questioning and with law enforcement officials present she did not mention the fact that she knew CC-1 personally. In November of that same year, CC-1 came back to the same Avenue A Sovereign Bank, but this time to clean out the entire vault (netting him over $100,000). After this second heist, Dasrath once again spoke with law enforcement officials and for a second time failed (or ignored) to reveal the fact that she knew CC-1 personally. It has also since been reported that she received a percentage of the take.

Perhaps for a teller who earns a wage that is barely above the minimum hourly rate, robbing banks might carry somewhat of an appeal as a secondary source of income. Some readers may find this hard to believe but there was once a time when being a bank teller was considered a high-class profession and one that paid a decent salary. I recall a family member having had one of these respectable "white-collar" jobs. She always embraced her teller job as a serious career, was eager to learn new systems and loved dressing up in professional corporate attire (high heels, panty hose, lipstick, etc). My relative was one of the "smart" ones since she was able to calculate numbers in her head - add, subtract, multiply AND divide - and all without hesitation.

Comparing her to bank tellers like Dasrath or the last few tellers that I have personally dealt with is like comparing apples to bananas. I have begun to feel that today's banking techniques and procedures are definitely not the same as those that were used by my grandma's bank. Modern bank tellers are not at all like that classy relative of mine was. The first instance of my developing distaste for bank tellers came from my experience with one who deposited several of my business checks into someone else's checking account. I never found out whose account it was - perhaps it was the teller's own personal account - but I ended up being the person who was left holding the (empty) bag.

I later accepted the responsibility for this mishap because I naively blamed myself for using the bank's "convenient" drive-thru window on a Friday afternoon on my way out of town instead of taking the time to walk into the lobby to conduct my business. Later, while on my trip, I happened to stop by another bank's ATM, and much to my dismay, the cash I expected wasn't in my account even though I deposited the checks a few days ago. Angry and feeling quite irate, I called the bank to find out what was going on - was I not allowed to use another bank's ATM? Was there a surprise lien against my account? Did I simply forget to balance my checkbook? During my telephone conversation with the bank and while tracking the numbers from my deposit slip, the branch manager (sure enough) realized that the teller had indeed made a mistake. Unfortunately, in order to fix this mistake, it would take an additional few more days before my original deposit would finally clear to my account. All in all, the manger explained to me that he was "truly very sorry for the inconvenience."

I decided to move on from that bank to another one. When I tried to open an account, I noticed that the bank officer happened to have some very colorful tattoos running up and down his arms. I wouldn't want any reader to think that I am prejudiced against tattoos, but it did appear strange that this particular bank teller/account manager mentioned to me that he would be very interested in showing me those tattoos, especially those which were hidden from the public eye. When I asked what he meant by that, he said he couldn't talk about that at the moment and invited me instead to take a tour of the bank with him. As I was at that young and naïve stage of my life usually open to adventure and "whatever comes my way," I agreed to the tour.

I was taken around the lobby and introduced to all the relationship-banking officers. Next I was shown the bank's vault and after that, I was then led down to a dimly lit basement where the main design-and-function elements appeared to be a dingy desk and stacks of boxes piled from the floor to ceiling filled with what looked like old bank receipts. As I looked around wondering why I was being shown this particular part of the bank, my tour guide began to unbutton his shirt, and once he managed to get it off completely, stood before me in a rather Herculean posture obviously intended to show off his heavily tattooed arms and chest (said chest also being quite hairy). I had no idea at first what to say or do in response to this rather improper and uncalled-for demonstration. I couldn't help feeling like a deer caught in a pair of oncoming headlights. Mr. Tattoo then attempted to grab my hand to pull me towards him, but I instead managed to move backwards and away - in the process causing some dusty and overfilled boxes to come crashing loudly to the floor. While he scrambled to pick up the spilled files and receipts and put them back into their respective boxes, the embarrassment and unease that I felt became excruciating and I beat a rather hasty retreat. This incident was obviously more than enough to "chase" me far, far away from that ill-chosen bank.

The most recent teller that I dealt with spent a ridiculously lengthy amount of time looking me up and down, rolling her eyes, and mumbling "mmm-hmmm" under her breath as if I were handing her a bowl of dog food. I got the impression that - from her point of view - this was obviously what I deserved after standing in line for so long and also tapping my foot anxiously. When it was finally my turn to be attended to, I began to wonder to myself how long it was going to take for her to actually count the cash in front of her. I watched as she repeatedly licked her fingers and shuffled nervously through the stack of cash that I hoped to deposit. Although the total amount of the deposit wasn't really that large, it began to appear as though she would never manage to count it all on her own. Finally, about halfway through the stack, she signaled for the manager to come over and help count the cash with her. I continued to wait patiently while they both counted the money and then filled out what appeared to be some kind of a form. I was then finally handed my deposit slip and the manager rather caustically told me to "have a nice day."

From my own sometimes awful experiences with bank tellers, it is not difficult for me to comprehend how Miss Dasrath's commitment to uphold peoples' money in the highest respect might have become compromised by the lure of easy, cold, hard cash. On the other hand, it is not unreasonable to expect that the young woman who was studying for a law degree could, if convicted, end up serving a maximum of 60 years in "Club Fed." After Miss Dasrath's failure to support her fiduciary responsibility by exposing the bank's security system, I wonder how many disgruntled bank customers would like "the book" thrown at her. I also wonder if Miss Dasrath is hoping that some kindly judge would even perhaps consider it to be enough of a punishment for her to simply have to live with the fact that her cut of the pie still wasn't enough to skip out to Rio or to take a tour of the Bahamas. I guess we'll just have to follow this developing story in the news or perhaps wait for the movie version to find out how it all ends.

Breaking News Sources:

New York Daily News. Thomas Zambito and Temer EL-Ghobashy. Rookie Cop Charged in Heists Had Bank Teller Accomplice. Thursday, April 17th 2008.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/04/17/2008-04-17_rookie_cop_charged_in_heists_had_bank_te.html

New York Times. The Official Indictment, Courtesy of NY Times. Thursday, April 17. 2008.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/city_room/20080417_indictment.pdf