The former head of Wells Fargo's retail bank on Friday avoided prison time after pleading guilty to an obstruction charge related to the bank's sweeping fake-accounts scandal, Reuters reported. Carrie Tolstedt was sentenced to three years of probation including six months of home confinement by U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton in Los Angeles. She will also pay a $100,000 fine and serve 120 hours of community service. Tolstedt, 63, pleaded guilty in March to obstructing a government probe into misconduct at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo's retail and small business lending business, which she led from 2007 to 2016. She is the only top executive to face criminal charges over revelations starting in 2016 about Wells Fargo's sales culture, where employees opened millions of accounts and sold products that customers did not want in order to meet unrealistic sales goals. Tolstedt is also the rare top executive at a major U.S. bank to have faced potential time behind bars. None went to prison as a result of the 2008 global financial crisis.
