Karl Jean – Jeune fugitive for Stealing $30,000 from U.S. Bank

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) – As U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder arrived in Haiti to discuss crime and deportations with members of Caricom, news broke that First Lady Sophia Martelly’s chief communications officer is a wanted man in the United States for stealing nearly $30,000 from a bank.


The Palm Beach Post reported that tweeting to his more than 8,000 Twitter followers Monday Jean-Jeune said that he had arrived at the Karibe Hotel in Port-au-Prince, site of the first summit of 15 Caribbean nations to be held in Haiti.

Two hours before U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder arrived to discuss crime and deportations with members of the Caricom conference, Jean-Jeune tweeted that he was so moved by an opening musical performance that it gave him “goosebumps.”

The Florida Department of Corrections lists him as a fugitive — on the run from a six-year probation sentence he was supposed to serve after pleading guilty to stealing nearly $30,000 from a Lake Worth bank where he was a teller.



Prison officials say they’ve informed Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies they may have a line on Jean-Jeune, but added that courts in cases such as this one sometimes decline to extradite or set limits on how far they will search for a fugitive.

“This allows many offenders to remain at large, even when their whereabouts (are) known,” state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff said.

In Jean-Jeune’s case, Rackleff said, sheriff’s officials told them that the extradition range is “Florida pick-up only”, meaning Jean-Jeune could conceivably travel to other U.S. states without fear of being apprehended.

According to a 2007 arrest report, Jean-Jeune — listed in the arrest report as Karl Jeune — was working at a Washington Mutual Bank branch when an operations analyst said she suspected Jean-Jeune had embezzled $28,700 through cash exchanges he posted between May and August of that year — walking out at closing time with envelopes full of cash in increments ranging from $700 to $5,000.

Jean-Jeune admitted the thefts to bank officials and sheriff’s deputies, according to the report.

One deputy wrote that Jean-Jeune told him that he bought the car he was driving, the cellular phone he was using and a radar detector in his car all with the money he took from the bank.

Court records show Jean-Jeune pleaded guilty to a single count of second-degree grand theft in February 2008, and as part of a plea agreement agreed to serve six years on probation. A judge also ordered Jean-Jeune to repay the bank, adding that his probation could be terminated after 18 months as long as he had repaid the full $28,700