Through a spokesperson, Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip J. Caraballo in Scranton declined to specifically discuss how Jelen rigged the election and impersonated a board member and fake supervisory board member.

Christine Dawe, who was appointed interim president/CEO of Valor on June 8, declined to comment on the case when contacted Thursday.

With more than 30 years of operational credit union experience, Dawe said she and the board are committed to improved internal controls, process improvements and transparency between departments, management, the board and regulatory agencies.

Dawe replaced interim president/CEO Edward Fox, who retired. Fox replaced Jelen after he was fired last August.

Jelen was appointed president/CEO in 2012 when he was 29 years old. Before joining what was then called Tobyhanna Federal Credit Union, he served as COO for the $158 million Palisades Credit Union in Pearl River, N.Y. He also worked on Wall Street as a controller for a mutual savings bank.

In June 2014, Jelen was featured as a CU Times Trailblazer 40 Below.

The young, up-and-coming CEO began his fraud in July 2014 when the credit union changed its name and brand from Tobyhanna to Valor.

In court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Scranton, federal prosecutors detailed how the young CEO carried out his scheme by manipulating credit union records and forging documents to make the payments appear legitimate.

For example, he got the credit union to cut a check for more than $30,000 to a vendor that hosted his wife's birthday party, in part, by forging the vendor's service contract and forging a special purchase authorization that disguised the payments as an employment incentive. He also altered Valor's books and records to disguise the payments.

Forging a service contract of a fake vendor and individual and forging a Valor reimbursement form was how Jelen stole more than $34,000 in credit union funds to pay his credit card bills.

He also caused Valor to fund his $25,000 sponsorship of a golf tournament held for his alma mater, St. Francis College, by altering board of directors' minutes and forging bank statements and a letter to disguise the payment as a donation to a Catholic soup kitchen.

By forging a signature of a board member on a payment approval form, Jelen funneled $18,650 to Temple University to pay for his tuition.

He also deceived the credit union to pay him nearly $140,000 by misrepresenting that the payment would be applied to a credit union insurance policy, even though Jelen knew the credit union already paid that amount earlier.

Under the attempted fraud charge, federal prosecutors alleged Jelen forged a severance contract that provided various payments and other benefits to him, including insurance and annuity policies worth more than $1 million.

Court documents did not reveal how the fraud was detected.

The credit union's net worth dropped from 8.09% at the end of March 2015 to 6.42% in March 2016, according to NCUA financial performance reports. Valor also posted an ROAA of -0.13% at the end of the first quarter last year and an ROAA of -0.06 at the end of the first quarter of this year.

By the end of 2015, Valor recorded a net income loss of $3.5 million and an additional loss of more than $35,000 by the end of 2016's first quarter, according to NCUA financial performance reports.

A court hearing for Jelen's arraignment on the felony charges has not been scheduled yet.