A former Richmond man admitted Friday to posing as his dead childhood friend and siphoning more than $80,000 from his bank account.

Howard Hoffman, 53, pleaded guilty to bank fraud in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Hoffman caused two checks, one for more than $61,000 and one for more than $19,000, to be drawn on the bank account of his childhood friend, referred in court documents as R.M., who had died in March 2007 in Costa Rica.

In April 2008, Hoffman had developed a scheme to transfer his late friend’s funds into his possession by first using R.M.’s personal identifying information to activate online banking features for R.M.’s bank account, Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Wolff wrote in court records.

Next, Hoffman changed the address of his late friend’s bank account to Hoffman’s then-Richmond address.

Hoffman then caused a check to be drawn on R.M.’s bank account to be made payable to Malamute Investment Management, a corporation created in 2002 of which Hoffman was president. Hoffman created a new bank account with a credit union in Malamute’s name and had the check deposited in that account, Wolff wrote in court records.

The second check, drawn 17 days later, also was deposited in the new credit union account under Malamute’s name.

Hoffman never had the authority to access R.M.’s bank account, to change that account’s address nor cause checks to be issued, Wolff wrote.

Hoffman faces up to 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine and five years of supervised release. He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service.

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