PROVIDENCE – Berkshire Bank, a Boston-based bank with five locations throughout Rhode Island, is facing a federal class action lawsuit alleging it helped facilitate a $100 million Ponzi scheme operated by Miles Burton Marshall, a longtime tax preparer and insurance agent in upstate New York, according to WKTV NewsChannel 2, an NBC affiliate in Utica, N.Y.
The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 10 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York by a class of defrauded investors and Fred Stevens, a court-appointed administrator representing 369 victims.
Marshall allegedly promised 8% annual returns through promissory notes but instead used funds from new investors to pay earlier ones, according to the lawsuit. It further claims those investor funds were funneled through a Berkshire Bank checking account used to carry out the scheme.
One of the lead attorneys representing the investors, Daniel Centner of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway and Wise LLP, said the bank ignored multiple red flags over a six-year period – including a 2021 email from NBT Bank, Marshall’s former bank, warning that Marshall may be running a Ponzi scheme.
Despite that warning, Centner said, Berkshire continued handling Marshall’s accounts and provided him with a remote check scanner capable of depositing up to $300,000 per day, WKTV reported.
“An investment scheme of this scale and magnitude simply cannot be undertaken by one person alone,” said Robert Elgidely, a partner at Fox Rothschild representing Stevens. “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.”
The scheme allegedly affected 1,000 investors across the region, according to WKTV.
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Source: PBN September 15 2025
