Lawsuit Filed Against Berkshire Bank Over M. Burton Marshall’s Fraud

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A major lawsuit has been filed against Berkshire Bank for allegedly aiding a nearly $100 million Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Miles Burton Marshall across upstate New York.

Hundreds of victims, many of whom lost all their savings, are part of this lawsuit.

The case is being filed by a class of investor-victims and Fred Stevens, the Plan Administrator and Assignee of Bank Litigation Claims from 369 investor-victims, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Darlene Stetson, a victim of the scheme from Waterville, shared her experience during a news conference.

“We started out by making a couple small deposits with initial amounts in the amount of $5,000 and $3,000 to Burt Marshall,” Stetson said.

“In August of 2018,” she continued, “we were supposedly earning an 8% annual interest and each month we would roll this interest into the note. Marshall would then execute an addendum acknowledging the new face value amount.”

“Over the years, we made regular additional principal investments, which then added to our outstanding face value balances,” she explained. “We lost it all, about $70,000 in principal contributions, not to mention all of the interest we thought we were earning,” she said.

Stetson added that the financial loss was one of the biggest shocks of her and her husband’s lives.

“The money that was stolen has financially crippled many families and organizations within the community. And the more we learn about how Berkshire Bank enabled this fraudulent activity and blatantly ignored its legal duties as a bank, the more we all feel utterly outraged,” she said.

She emphasized that Berkshire Bank must be held accountable.

Lawyers said that there are 1,000 victims in the whole Ponzi scheme.

Daniel Centner of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway and Wise, LLP, said that the lawsuit aims to hold the bank accountable for allegedly “aiding and abetting a fraudster.”

Centner said the bank ignored numerous fraud alerts over a six-year period and a direct warning from NBT Bank about Marshall’s activities.

“Our complaint quotes in its entirety an e-mail from another bank, Marshall’s former bank, NBT,” he explained, “that explicitly warned Berkshire Bank that Marshall may be running a Ponzi scheme.”

“That’s simply incredible,” he continued. “Marshall’s scheme was so apparent and so obvious that another bank, a bank that Marshall no longer had any relationship with whatsoever, reached out to Berkshire Bank to try to stop it.”

“There’s no doubt that the right people at Berkshire Bank received that warning,” Centner added.

“Berkshire Bank ignored that warning and then doubled down on its support for Marshall by giving him a personal check scanner that allowed him to remotely deposit up to $300,000 in victim funds every single day,” he said.

“These victims are hardworking, good people who are now dealing with significant life obstacles,” Centner said.

Robert Elgidely, partner at Fox Rothschild, said, “An investment scheme of this scale and magnitude simply cannot be undertaken by one person alone. In this case, we allege that Berkshire Bank was not only turning a blind eye to obvious criminal activity–they were enabling it and profiting from it at every step of the way.”

According to lawyers, “Berkshire Bank had knowledge of Marshall’s misconduct, and at least one prior bank had terminated its relationship with Marshall based on his patterns of activity. That same bank even explicitly warned Berkshire Bank in 2021 that they believed Marshall was running a Ponzi scheme. The complaint details how Berkshire Bank chose to retain Marshall as a significant deposit account customer instead of closing his accounts and reporting him to law enforcement authorities, as was required by federal law and the bank’s own policies and procedures.”

Source: WKTV September 10 2025