Wells Fargo holds more deposits than any other bank in the Denver area. (Courtesy of Wells Fargo)
Wells Fargo is asking a south metro judge to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to blame the bank, at least in part, for a lawyer’s decision to send $375,000 to hackers in Hong Kong.
“(Randy) Corporon requested the wire transfer and Wells Fargo complied with his request,” the bank’s attorneys wrote in a motion to dismiss Sept. 27. “Any losses to the Corporon defendants were directly caused by Mr. Corporon’s own failure to recognize an obvious scam.”
In 2021, Corporon was the divorce attorney for a man named Thaddeus Kowalik. After the Kowaliks sold their home in south Denver, it was Corporon who held the proceeds in escrow. Then, when the divorce was settled, it fell on Corporon to pay each side their half.
Corporon asked the ex-wife’s attorney, Danielle Demkowicz, how her client would like to be paid. Unbeknownst to Corporon, a hacker had infiltrated Demkowicz’s email. Posing as Demkowicz, the hacker suggested wiring cash to Dah Sing Bank in Hong Kong.
“While I was awaiting my business banker, I received a call from a woman purporting to be the ex-wife, Anne,” Corporon later explained in a report that he filed with the Hong Kong Police Force. “I had never spoken with her before and our questions (limited to the transfer) and responses seemed perfectly normal to me and I completed the transaction.”
Corporon realized his mistake three days later, when Thaddeus Kowalik texted him.
“He said that his children were coming to Denver to visit their mom and she was NOT in Hong Kong,” Corporon later wrote to police, according to a copy of his report that BusinessDen obtained. “I asked him if his ex-wife had any kind of an accent and he said no. I immediately realized I had been scammed and went to my bank to try and stop the transaction.”
Anne O’Riordan, the ex-wife and intended recipient of the $374,290 wire transfer, sued Corporon in June. Corporon responded to that lawsuit in August by suing Wells Fargo and Demkowicz, the former O’Riordan attorney whose email account was hacked. He believes that if O’Riordan wins her case, Wells Fargo and Demkowicz should also have to pay.
Corporon claims that a Wells Fargo branch in Aurora failed to inform him of his options for canceling the wire transfer to Hong Kong, such as the FBI’s kill-chain process.
“Wells Fargo didn’t say anything about it. They didn’t implement it, suggest it, mention it, or do anything other than initiate the ‘recall,’ which failed,” he later told investigators.
It is Corporon’s lawsuit, known as a third-party complaint, that Wells Fargo wants dismissed.
Randy Corporon has been a licensed attorney in Colorado since 1998. (Facebook)
“Mr. Corporon concedes that he received the fraudulent wire instructions from the fraudster via email, that he traveled to a local branch of Wells Fargo for the express purpose of sending the wire, and that he specifically requested and authorized Wells Fargo to send the wire to Hong Kong,” the bank’s attorneys wrote to Judge Elizabeth Volz on Sept. 27.
Wells Fargo said that it contacted Dah Sing Bank in Hong Kong, which refused to return the money, as soon as Corporon told Wells Fargo what had happened. But that was three days after the transfer. There was nothing Wells Fargo could do, its lawyers told Volz.
“Since the Corporon defendants cannot blame Wells Fargo for their own negligence, they instead claim that Wells Fargo contributed to the loss when the bank was unable to fix Mr. Corporon’s mess by recalling the funds,” they explained. “This theory fails.”
Corporon is represented by the attorneys Aaron Atkinson and Kali Cain with Hackstaff Snow Atkinson Griess in Greenwood Village, who declined to comment on the case.
The bank’s lawyer is John Hawk in the Denver office of Womble Bond Dickinson.
Wells Fargo holds more deposits than any other bank in the Denver area. (Courtesy of Wells Fargo)
Wells Fargo is asking a south metro judge to throw out a lawsuit that seeks to blame the bank, at least in part, for a lawyer’s decision to send $375,000 to hackers in Hong Kong.
“(Randy) Corporon requested the wire transfer and Wells Fargo complied with his request,” the bank’s attorneys wrote in a motion to dismiss Sept. 27. “Any losses to the Corporon defendants were directly caused by Mr. Corporon’s own failure to recognize an obvious scam.”
In 2021, Corporon was the divorce attorney for a man named Thaddeus Kowalik. After the Kowaliks sold their home in south Denver, it was Corporon who held the proceeds in escrow. Then, when the divorce was settled, it fell on Corporon to pay each side their half.
Corporon asked the ex-wife’s attorney, Danielle Demkowicz, how her client would like to be paid. Unbeknownst to Corporon, a hacker had infiltrated Demkowicz’s email. Posing as Demkowicz, the hacker suggested wiring cash to Dah Sing Bank in Hong Kong.
“While I was awaiting my business banker, I received a call from a woman purporting to be the ex-wife, Anne,” Corporon later explained in a report that he filed with the Hong Kong Police Force. “I had never spoken with her before and our questions (limited to the transfer) and responses seemed perfectly normal to me and I completed the transaction.”
Corporon realized his mistake three days later, when Thaddeus Kowalik texted him.
“He said that his children were coming to Denver to visit their mom and she was NOT in Hong Kong,” Corporon later wrote to police, according to a copy of his report that BusinessDen obtained. “I asked him if his ex-wife had any kind of an accent and he said no. I immediately realized I had been scammed and went to my bank to try and stop the transaction.”
Anne O’Riordan, the ex-wife and intended recipient of the $374,290 wire transfer, sued Corporon in June. Corporon responded to that lawsuit in August by suing Wells Fargo and Demkowicz, the former O’Riordan attorney whose email account was hacked. He believes that if O’Riordan wins her case, Wells Fargo and Demkowicz should also have to pay.
Corporon claims that a Wells Fargo branch in Aurora failed to inform him of his options for canceling the wire transfer to Hong Kong, such as the FBI’s kill-chain process.
“Wells Fargo didn’t say anything about it. They didn’t implement it, suggest it, mention it, or do anything other than initiate the ‘recall,’ which failed,” he later told investigators.
It is Corporon’s lawsuit, known as a third-party complaint, that Wells Fargo wants dismissed.
Randy Corporon has been a licensed attorney in Colorado since 1998. (Facebook)
“Mr. Corporon concedes that he received the fraudulent wire instructions from the fraudster via email, that he traveled to a local branch of Wells Fargo for the express purpose of sending the wire, and that he specifically requested and authorized Wells Fargo to send the wire to Hong Kong,” the bank’s attorneys wrote to Judge Elizabeth Volz on Sept. 27.
Wells Fargo said that it contacted Dah Sing Bank in Hong Kong, which refused to return the money, as soon as Corporon told Wells Fargo what had happened. But that was three days after the transfer. There was nothing Wells Fargo could do, its lawyers told Volz.
“Since the Corporon defendants cannot blame Wells Fargo for their own negligence, they instead claim that Wells Fargo contributed to the loss when the bank was unable to fix Mr. Corporon’s mess by recalling the funds,” they explained. “This theory fails.”
Corporon is represented by the attorneys Aaron Atkinson and Kali Cain with Hackstaff Snow Atkinson Griess in Greenwood Village, who declined to comment on the case.
The bank’s lawyer is John Hawk in the Denver office of Womble Bond Dickinson.
