Hold placed on ex-chief’s retirement money

The Oconee judge who sentenced Scott Bannister has now signed an order that attaches a lien on the state retirement of the former Westminster police chief.  At the request of City Attorney Derek Enderlin, 10th Circuit Judge Alex Macaulay ruled that it’s appropriate for a lien to be placed on Bannister’s account with the Police Officers’ Retirement System for the amount of nearly $228 thousand.  That’s the amount to which Bannister pleaded guilty to embezzling from the city.  Part of the two-year prison term handed down in 2014 requires Bannister to make restitution of $113.5 thousand, plus a 20% fee.  Attaching the lien is part of Westminster’s effort to recover what it lost in what the city alleged was a scheme that went “unchecked for years.”  Late last year an out of court settlement awarded Westminster $100 thousand from First Citizens Bank, which kept a city account from which Bannister cashed or negotiated 195 fraudulent checks totaling $235 thousand.  At Bannister’s plea of guilt and sentencing, his defense attorney said her client did not know why he embezzled the money.