A New York-based bank branch manager used his position to steal $208,938.68 from a customer’s accounts and was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison.

Starting in January 2020, James Gomes, now 43, linked his phone number to the unnamed customer’s accounts and enrolled them in online banking services.

From March through April 2020, Gomes transferred money from the victim’s accounts to his own at other banks, the Justice Department said in a release.

Gomes was employed at TD Bank from August 2017 until March 2022, according to a consent order filed this summer by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau in the Treasury Department. 

As part of the scheme, Gomes made a fake email address using the victim’s name and emailed his own work address to make it appear as if the customer, from Fort Lee, New Jersey, was communicating with him. Gomes kept doing this even after the customer’s death on April 5, 2020.

TD Bank reimbursed the estate of the customer once Gomes’ scheme was uncovered.

Gomes, of Manhattan, pleaded guilty to wire fraud on May 16. As part of his plea, he agreed to comply with the OCC order, which prohibits him from participating in the affairs of any insured depository institution or credit union, any institutions treated as insured banks and any federal agency that regulates such institutions.

Gomes was also sentenced to three years of supervised release after his prison term and to pay back the money as restitution and forfeiture of criminal proceeds.