NCUA Bans Two Former CU Employees in Texas & Washington
A former vice president of lending allegedly runs an “improper lending scheme.”
The NCUA on Monday banned Soundra Lopez, a former vice president of lending, and Latrese Williams, a former member services representative, from ever participating in the affairs of a federally-insured financial institution.
Seven months before the $47 million County & Employees Credit Union in Edinburg, Texas was liquidated by state regulators in October 2014, Lopez, along with two other employees, sued the credit union in March 2014 claiming they had not been paid overtime hours.
The NCUA, which was named the credit union’s conservator, denied Lopez’s overtime claims. What’s more, in a 2017 court filing in U.S. District Court in McAllen, Texas, the NCUA alleged Lopez was not entitled to compensation because she violated her fiduciary duties and “acted in an illegal and improper manner.”
The independent federal agency alleged Lopez orchestrated and participated in an improper lending scheme, which she benefitted from and led to substantial financial losses for CMECU.
“Most, if not all, of the alleged overtime worked by Plaintiff Lopez was in furtherance of that improper lending scheme, including collection efforts,” the NCUA claimed in court documents. How the scheme was carried out and concealed was not described in court documents.
Although the NCUA did not specify the amount of financial losses from the “improper lending scheme,” at the end of September 2014, the credit union posted a net income loss of $3.3 million and net worth of 0.85%, according to NCUA financial performance reports. At the end 2013, CMECU recorded a net income loss of $656,559. However, the credit union showed healthy net income gains from 2009 to 2012 with ROAAs that ranged from more than 2% and more than 1% throughout the same years, according to NCUA financial performance reports.
The $2.8 billion Navy Army Community Credit Union of Corpus Christi, Texas assumed CMECU’s assets, shares, 7,173 members and selected loans.
In just nine months, Latrese Williams stole more than $460,000 from the $3.4 million Northwest Baptist Federal Credit Union in Seattle, Wash.
After she was indicted in 2017, Williams was sentenced to four months in prison on April 5, 2018 by U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle. She was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $460,485 in restitution.
Williams stole the credit union’s funds by issuing fraudulent checks worth $202,126 drawn from the credit union’s corporate account. She also used her position to order 75 unauthorized electronic transfers totaling $258,358 from the credit union’s corporate account, according to court documents.
Williams attempted to hide her theft by using NWBFCU’s accounting software to falsely indicate that the unauthorized checks and transfers had been reversed or canceled.
Williams used the stolen money to buy two condominiums in Kent, Wash.
NWBFCU was merged into the $859 million Seattle Metropolitan Credit Union in 2015.