FRESNO - Acting U.S. Attorney Michele Beckwith announced today that Kenneth Gould, 68, formerly of Clovis, pleaded guilty to bank larceny for stealing more than $800,000 from a bank.

According to court records, Gould was a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and operated a payroll services company in Clovis. From October 2017 through March 2018, he initiated several fraudulent electronic payments from one of his clients’ accounts to his payroll company’s account at the bank. Gould then withdrew the money in cashier’s checks while the payments were pending.

After the bank had credited the fraudulent payments to the payroll company’s account for a short period, it realized there were insufficient funds to cover the payments, denied the payments, and attempted to recover its money, but it was too late. Approximately $830,000 of the credited funds was already gone.

Gould gave the funds to the client from whose account he initiated the fraudulent payments because he had loaned that individual money and was hopeful that the individual would pay him back. Instead, the client gambled the money away.

Gould is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston on June 2, 2025. Gould faces maximum statutory penalties of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account several variables.