An ex-banker who bought a Porsche, other vehicles and three real estate properties after embezzling more than $1 million from an elderly Tucson customer is heading to federal prison, officials said.

Jacob On-Liu Roach, 38, was sentenced Friday to 40 months behind bars for bank fraud in a plea deal that requires him to liquidate or forfeit to the government possessions he acquired with the funds stolen from the 82-year-old victim, federal court records show. Authorities seized tens of thousands of dollars from several financial accounts from Roach.

Roach, of Oro Valley, a former business relationship banker at a Chase Bank branch in Tucson, stole a total of $1.25 million, an amount a federal prosecutor called “staggering,” according to federal court documents.

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“It was simply pure greed of a vast magnitude,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Wallace H. Kleindienst said in a sentencing memo, describing the defendant’s motive in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

Roach perpetrated the fraud by convincing the elderly client, who already had several accounts, to open a new one.

He then began moving money from other accounts into the new account, for which Roach obtained a debit card to make withdrawals.

About two weeks after making his first withdrawal in October 2016, Roach quit his bank job but kept the scheme running by making online banking transfers, the prosecution said.

Roach has already sold off a $90,000 2015 Porsche 911, two other vehicles, a $190,000 property in Ogden, Utah, and two Tucson-area properties worth a total of about $350,000, and also forfeited about $115,000 collectively stashed in three personal bank accounts in order to repay the victim, the sentencing memo said.

Altogether, Roach still came up about $405,000 short, which Chase Bank paid to the customer who was victimized, the memo said.


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Contact reporter Carol Ann Alaimo at 573-4138 or calaimo@tucson.com. On Twitter: @StarHigherEd