Woman Sentenced for Submitting CU Loan Application While Serving Time for Fraud

Generose Yambao will serve a 27-month prison sentence after she admitted to applying for a loan at a California credit union while she was in a county jail serving a sentence for fraud.

While incarcerated at the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, Calif., last year, Yambao mailed a loan application with a handwritten letter in an envelope that was stamped “county jail inmate material.”

The fraudulent loan application she submitted in this case was easily detected and rejected by employees at the $5.9 billion Redwood Credit Union in Santa Rosa, Calif., according to court documents.

“The stamp on the envelope, the strange handwritten letter, and the fact that Defendant was not a member of the Redwood Credit Union raised immediate red flags,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.

Yambao was reportedly sentenced to an eight-year prison sentence in 2012 for an identity theft case that involved eight victims.

Her defense attorney said Yambao suffers from mental health issues intertwined with a crippling drug addiction, though she is no longer using drugs.

“The sad reality is that Ms. Yambao had unfettered access to drugs while in custody on this state offense, and was actively addicted and using throughout all of the offense conduct now before the court,” Yambao’s attorney wrote in court documents. “The drug use during the offense conduct is not offered in mitigation: Ms. Yambao accepts full responsibility for her crimes. It is striking, however, to now see the remarkable change in this woman’s life now that she is not using drugs: a change that bodes well for her complete rehabilitation.”

After pleading guilty to bank fraud and making a false statement on a loan and credit application, Yambao was sentenced on Oct. 21 by a federal judge in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. She is expected to start her 27-month prison term in February 2021.