NCUA Bans Former Vault Teller Who Embezzled $222,000 From CU

Dianne Richardson, a former vault teller who stole $222,000 from the $214 million Pioneer Appalachia Federal Credit Union in Charleston, W.Va. was banned from participating in the affairs of any federally insured financial institution, the NCUA said Thursday.

Richardson, 70, began serving a 21-month federal prison sentence in July for embezzling funds from the credit union’s vault over five and a half years.

She is currently incarcerated at the minimum-security prison camp in Alderson, W. Va., according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Richardson’s release date is scheduled for January in 2023.

She is the 25th former credit union employee who has been banned by the NCUA in 2021. In 2020, the NCUA banned 36 former credit union employees, according to the federal agency’s Administrative Orders webpage.

Prosecutors said Richardson was hired by what was then the Pioneer West Virginia FCU as a vault teller in 2005. Richardson began her embezzlement in September 2013. In court documents, prosecutors said she had sole access to the vault at the credit union’s South Charleston branch, which enabled her to conceal her crimes through early 2019.

Prosecutors said Richardson made multiple false entries in the credit union’s books and records to conceal cash shortages at the branch. Specifically, she falsified cash-in and cash-out tickets, force balanced her teller drawer, falsified cash reconcilement reports and falsified teller drawer and vault daily cash balancing reports, among others.

On Feb. 26, 2019, unlike previous audits, an internal auditor became concerned because of the small cash balance in the vault. Prosecutors noted Richardson created a false entry mere minutes prior before the auditor arrived at the branch and then reversed that false entry minutes after the audit was finished.

Prosecutors said she spent the credit union’s funds on personal expenses, to help her granddaughter with school and to make donations to her church.