BALTIMORE, MD—A Baltimore County man was sentenced this week to thirty months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release in Baltimore federal court for conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

The sentencing of 67-year-old Theodore Sapperstein, formerly of Pikesville, is the result of his guilty plea to conspiracy to commit bank fraud. He will serve 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Sapperstein was part of a scheme that stole more than $1.5 million from victims across the United States. He and his co-conspirators used shell companies to create false bank accounts that were debited against the victims’ bank accounts. This enabled them to continue conducting unauthorized debits and to evade bank scrutiny.

The scheme’s shell companies also generated “micro debits” against other bank accounts that were controlled and funded by the scheme. These micro debits artificially lowered the shell companies’ return rates, which reduced the risk of bank scrutiny and lessened the potential negative impact on the scheme’s banking relations. Sapperstein facilitated the scheme’s use of fraudulent micro debits and helped broker payment processing for the scheme, securing a payment processor that processed the unauthorized debits.

The Justice Department has prosecuted the case with the assistance of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.

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