Norma Gold was charged Oct. 5 in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, N.Y., with falsifying records that enabled her to embezzle up to $200,000 from a failed New York credit union over 15 years.
She did not enter a plea and remains free on a personal bond.
In December 2012, the NCUA closed the $778,129 Olean Tile Employees Federal Credit Union in Olean, N.Y., after concluding it was insolvent and had no prospect of restoring operations.
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Although the federal agency didn't say how the credit union, chartered in 1936, went under, examiners behind the scenes uncovered very large discrepancies between the credit union's books and the records of outside banks where the credit union's deposits were held. In fact, the NCUA examination revealed Olean Tile Employee' books showed far greater balances in the credit union's deposits held by outside banks than the records obtained by the NCUA from those banks.
These findings were turned over to federal investigators who determined that Gold of Eldred, Pa., stole up to $200,000 from the credit union for 15 years. She admitted to the embezzlement during an interview with a U.S. Secret Service agent on Dec. 17, 2012.
The NCUA continued its audit by removing 150 boxes of the credit union's documents that were transported to the federal agency's office in Austin, Texas.
The audit, which took many months of work by several NCUA employees, found that Gold used several different schemes to steal funds, which included taking cash, wiring credit union money orders to pay her personal bills, and creating false deposits into her checking and savings accounts.
According to federal investigators, Gold made payments with her personal checks. When the checks were returned along with transaction information, she didn't reduce the balance in her checking account, which created an unbalance condition between the records of the credit union and the records of the outside bank. To conceal this scheme, Gold created false records, according to court documents.
Gold also stole cash from members after they purchased money orders. She then replaced the stolen cash with her personal check. When the personal check was processed, Gold again failed to reflect the reduction in the personal checking account balance.
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