Evolve Bank in Arkansas fires CEO after arrest

Evolve Bank & Trust in West Memphis, Ark., fired CEO Bob Hartheimer after he was arrested on two child pornography-related charges.

The bank said in a statement that Mark Mosteller, its president and chief financial officer, and Joelle Weltzin, its general counsel, will oversee operations and strategic direction. They had those roles before Hartheimer was hired in August.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that its agents carried out a federal court-authorized arrest warrant for Hartheimer at the bank’s offices. The charges, a count of sexual exploitation of a minor and a count of distribution of obscene material, were shared on the inmate database for Shelby County, Tenn.

“Unfortunately, the case is currently under seal, so I have no comment,” Blake Ballin, Hartheimer’s lawyer, told Banking Dive. Ballin said he did not know when the case would be unsealed.

The arrest has nothing to do with the bank, which has been dealing with its own issues tied to the collapse of middleware provider Synapse and its Banking-as-a-Service platform.

Hartheimer is set to appear in federal court in the Western District of Tennessee on Oct. 28.