CHICKASHA – A Blanchard woman admitted she forged 91 checks written on her mother’s bank account, siphoning $445,300 from the elderly Chickasha woman’s savings in 11 months to finance a gambling addiction.
Tamara Radonna Walters, 51, wasn’t sentenced to prison; instead, she received five consecutive suspended sentences totaling 25 years and will be on su pervised probation for two years.
Further, Walters was ordered to pay $37,492, which included a $9,100 f ine ($100 times each of the 91 f orgery counts), $9,929 in court costs, $4,550 to the District Attorneys Revolving Fund, $2,300 to the Oklahoma Court Information System, a $3,185 Victim Compensation Assessment, $505 to the county sheriff’s fund, $910 to the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, $910 to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a $960 prosecution reimbursement fee to the District A ttorney’s Office, plus other fees and assessments.
In addition, a court hearing in Grady County District Court is scheduled for May 8 to discuss restitution to the victim.
An investigation was launched after Walters’ mother, Gala Harper, received an end-of-year tax statement from Liberty National Bank which disclosed the unauthorized checks written on her money market account, Edmond attorney Paul Kolker said.
The checks were written between Feb. 1 and Dec. 27, 2021, for amounts ranging from $3,000 to $7,500, co urt records reflect.
Chickasha police said Walters admitted forging her mother’s signature on those checks to support her gambling addiction. Walters told investigators she spent the funds on electronic gaming at a casino.
Subsequently Harper sued Liberty National Bank and its owner, B.O.E. Bancshares, for cashing those 91 forged instruments “in a manner inconsistent with, and in violation of, ordinary and reasonable banking practices” and contrary to its obligation to “serve as a community watchdog for elderly abuse.”
Victim sues bank, alleging negligence Harper sued Liberty National Bank in Oklahoma County District Court on Dec. 2, 2021, alleging breach of contract and negligence.
Kolker mailed a let ter to the bank on Jan. 15, 2022, including copies of all of the checks in question, requesting reimbursement of the embezzled money. After the bank refused, Harper sued for recovery of the funds plus court costs, accrued interest, attorney’s fees, and unspecified punitive damages.
Harper was unaware that her bank account was being drained for nearly a year because she is “a product of her time,” Kolker told Southwest Ledger. “She doesn’t understand how to operate a computer.” The bank mails its statements electronically rather than by paper, he said. Harper opened the money market account with Liberty National Bank in approximately 2000, the lawsuit relates.
She was “the only authorized signer listed on the account’s signature card” and was the only person authorized to withdraw money from that account. The bank “promised Ms. Harper and all of its customers” that the only checks it would honor were those which were “properly payable and signed by an authorized signer.”
The bank was “obligated by state and federal law to safeguard Ms. Harper’s funds from criminal activity, suspicious activity, and unauthorized withdrawals,” the lawsuit asserts.
Sometime “on or around” February 2021 Walters gained access to Harper’s checkbook, began forging checks “and absconded with $445,300” by the end of the year, the suit alleges.
Records show that on at least four occasions, forged and stolen checks were cashed by the bank “multiple times in one d ay,” and that Walters went to one employee identified as “Bank Teller #3” 62 times, often during “non-business hours.”
Bank says victim who lost $445,300 suffered no damage In its response, Liberty National Bank admitted that many of the transactions at issue “involved the same teller” and “occurred at around the same time of day,” but denied that the transactions “should have reasonably raised suspicions of forgery on the part of its employees…” Walters presented “the vast majority” of the forged checks during non-business hours, Harper alleged in her lawsuit, “further raising suspicions that would have been readily apparent to any bank with reasonable safeguards in place and/or properly trained employees.”
Liberty National Bank denied that the transactions were conducted “during non-business hours.”
The signature card associated with Harper’s account “was readily accessible” to Liberty National Bank employees, and the bank had a duty to “monitor transactions for irregular, illegal, or unusual activity,” Harper contends.
The lawsuit claims the bank failed to “reasonably and adequately train and supervise” its tellers, management, and directors.
“People who are properly trained ask questions,” Kolker said, such as “how can that much money be withdrawn from a customer’s account without her ever stepping foot inside that bank?”
The bank claimed it “exercised ordinary care” and that Harper’s claims “may be barred in whole or in part by the statute of limita tions.”
The bank also cited a state law which decrees that, “A person whose failure to exercise ordinary care substantially contributes to an alteration of an instrument or to the making of a f orged signature on an instrument is precluded from asserting the alteration or the forgery against a person who, in good faith, pays the instrument or takes it for value or for collection.”
Liberty National Bank, represented by the Oklahoma City law firm of McAfee & Taft, also contends the mother “has suffered no damages.”
Liberty National Bank has offices in Oklahoma City, Lawton, Chickasha, Elgin, Blanchard, Medicine Park, and Apache.
Change of venue to Comanche Co. sought by bank Besides suing the bank and B.O.E. Bancshares, on Dec. 15, 2022, Harper also sued the bank’s then-ninemember board of directors and at least three of the bank’s tellers. The identities of those employees has not been disclosed in court records. The directors were dismissed from the case on Dec. 26, 2024.
The bank on Jan. 15 filed a motion to dismiss the case “for improper venue” or, in the alternative, transfer the case from Oklahoma County to Comanche County because “none of the remaining defendants [Liberty National Bank and B.O.E Bancshares] is located or r esides” in Oklahoma County, “nor did the acts under lying this lawsuit take place” in Oklahoma County.
Comanche County is where the lawsuit should be heard because “that is where Liberty has its principal place of business and it is where all of Lib erty’s principal officers … work and reside,” the bank asserted. No ruling on that motion had been f iled as of 5 p.m. Feb. 28.