Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday appointed five people to the board of directors of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council, which oversees development in this region.

The new directors are: Former St. Petersburg City Council member Bob Kersteen, 64; Todd Pressman, 43, of Clearwater, president of Pressman & Associates; Pat L. Whitesel, 66, outgoing mayor of Palmetto and vice president of Concept One Advertising; Philip L. Waller, 44, of Tampa, a water resource engineer and vice president of Montgomery Watson Harza; and Wilhelmina B. Curtis, 51, a Riverview construction executive.

SunTrust branch tellers accused of embezzlement

ST. PETERSBURG -- The head teller at a local SunTrust Bank is accused of embezzling more than half a million dollars from the bank over the past several years.

Lennox Anthony Hosam, 25, worked at the SunTrust branch at 4142 Sixth St. S. He was in jail Friday after police arrested him on a charge of first-degree grand theft.

The bank's security staff discovered that Hosam had stolen nearly $550,000 from the bank's vault and from his cash drawer at the bank, according to an arrest affidavit.

"All of this came to light after somebody saw him transfer money from his teller drawer to his savings account," said St. Petersburg police spokesman George Kajtsa. "They did an audit and found that he had done this several times over a four-year period."

Police said Hosam transferred the bank's money into his account in chunks of $100,000 at a time.

SunTrust officials could not explain Friday how Hosam had been able to keep stealing from the bank for years. However, they pointed out that it was the bank's security staff that caught Hosam.

"Through the course of a routine internal control review, SunTrust discovered we had funds missing, and through an investigation, determined what had occurred," said SunTrust spokeswoman Carolyn Gosselin. "None of those funds missing were customer funds."

Hosam had worked for the bank for seven years and had been that branch's head teller for five years, police said. Hosam, who has a Tampa address, was arrested Thursday night and was being held Friday in the Pinellas County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Another teller at the same bank is accused of taking $7,000 to $8,000 from her cash drawer to pay for rent, bills and college tuition, police said. Emalya Whitten Cratic, 23, of St. Petersburg was charged Thursday with third-degree grand theft. Police say she was caught after bank officials did an audit of her drawer.

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