Truist Bank is facing a $2.5 million defamation lawsuit filed by a Gwinnett County business owner who claims the bank falsely and publicly accused her of bank fraud.
The plaintiff said in a federal court complaint that her image from Truist’s security footage was provided to Gwinnett County police by the bank in August, when the bank reported that a customer had unlawfully obtained almost $20,000 from a Duluth branch in June.
Gwinnett police then issued a press release based on the bank’s report, and the plaintiff’s image was published in connection with the bank fraud by several media outlets, including CBS, Fox and ABC affiliates, case records show.
The plaintiff said she promptly cleared her name with Gwinnett police and Truist, but that the bank has failed to do anything to remedy the harm it did to her reputation. She said she asked the bank in September to identify all public reports of its false allegation and to seek removal or correction of those reports.
“Her image had been out in the world as a thief and con artist,” her attorney, Taylor Wilson, told the AJC on Monday. “The publicity surrounding her wrongful identification is not yet fully corrected.”
A Truist spokesperson told the AJC that while the bank generally doesn’t comment on pending litigation, it is aware of the lawsuit and is reviewing it.
The lawsuit does not accuse the Gwinnett County Police Department of doing anything wrong. It does include an image showing Gwinnett police updated its public report about the bank fraud to state that the plaintiff was no longer a suspect.
The plaintiff said in the lawsuit that she was at the Truist branch on Pleasant Hill Road during the afternoon of June 14, cashing two legitimate checks for $1,500 in child support from her ex-husband, who is a Truist customer.
Around the same time, another woman entered the same bank branch and used fake identification to impersonate a Truist customer, the suit alleges. That woman cashed a fraudulent check for $6,111 and withdrew $13,670 from the customer’s account, the suit alleges.
The suit, filed on Jan. 17, alleges Truist conducted an inadequate investigation in trying to identify who actually committed bank fraud. The plaintiff is Hispanic, while the true culprit is not, according to the lawsuit.
Wilson said that when his client became aware of the accusation against her and sought a meeting with Gwinnett police officers in late August, the officers reached out to Truist’s investigator to confirm her innocence. The bank ultimately confirmed that, he said.
Wilson said the bank’s unfounded accusation against his client, who immigrated to the United States from Honduras, threatened her lawful immigration status and harmed her business.
He said several media companies corrected or attempted to correct their coverage of the bank fraud after publishing the inaccurate information Gwinnett police released. The AJC is not naming the plaintiff and was not among the outlets that published her image.
“She values her personal and professional integrity,” Wilson said of his client. “Being publicly identified in her local and broader communities as a thief and scam artist at the hands of Truist is destructive, even when the wrongdoer attempts to put the message back in the bottle after the fact.”
The investigation by Gwinnett police of the bank fraud is ongoing, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiff said she can’t get all the information that Truist provided to Gwinnett police about the fraud while the investigation remains pending.
Gwinnett police told the AJC on Wednesday that no suspects had been positively identified or charged in the case.
Truist has yet to respond in court to the complaint.
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