However, Belzinskas' lawyer, Roger M. Synenberg of Cleveland, stated in court documents that his client didn't start working at the Cleveland credit union until January 2008.

While working at Taupa Lithuanian CU, Synenberg said Belzinskas was struggling financially and accumulated a large amount of debt even though he also worked as a full-time real estate agent and sold products on eBay.

Federal prosecutors alleged Belzinskas withdrew $436,026 from his personal accounts for which there were insufficient funds. Also, Spirikaitis made 19 fraudulent transfers to cover Belzinskas' overdrafts from other internal accounts.

Federal prosecutors said the former loan officer did not follow established procedures for overdrafts and didn't submit credit applications or loan documents for the money he received from Spirikaitis to cover the overdrafts.

Synenberg argued Belzinskas unintentionally overdrew his checking account, but did nothing to stop these fraudulent overdrafts after learning about them.

“Andrew initially justified his action (or inaction) by convincing himself that he would pay the money back,” Synenberg wrote in a sentencing memo to Judge Gwin. “He continued to work three jobs with the intention of paying the money back. Andrew turned each of his paychecks to Spirikaitis with the expectation that these funds were being credited toward the overdrafts from his account.”

However, Synenberg said in August 2011, that Belzinskas found out his checks were never deposited into his account. Instead, Belzinskas found the checks in a drawer at the Taupa office.

“From that point forward, Andrew personally deposited all of his checks into a separate account (at Taupa Lithuanian CU),” Synenberg wrote. “Andrew asked Spirikaitis more than once to transfer the funds from (that account) to credit against the overdrafts. Spirikaitis never transferred these funds and regrettably, Andrew did nothing to ensure the transfers were completed.”

In addition to Belzinskas, Spirikaitis enabled five other co-conspirators to steal $15 million from the credit union when it had only $23.6 million in assets. The co-conspirators – a bookkeeper, a teller and three business owners – were convicted, sentenced and ordered to pay restitution to the NCUA.

A March 2014 material loss report by the NCUA Office of Inspector General determined the Taupa Lithuanian CU fraud case led to a $33.5 million loss to NCUSIF.