Former Arizona Credit Union CEO Sentenced in $2.3 Million Embezzlement Case

Susan Irene Romero began embezzling from the $17.2 million Winslow Santa Fe Credit Union in December 2012. But it wasn’t until May 2019 that the board of directors confronted the 64-year-old former president/CEO about financial discrepancies revealed by an annual audit.

During that board meeting, Romero was fired after admitting her crime. In May 2021, she pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement of credit union funds.

Romero, who worked at the Winslow, Ariz.-based credit union for more than 30 years, was sentenced last week to 26 months in federal prison by U.S. District Court Judge John J. Tuchi in Phoenix. He also ordered Romero to pay $2,360,000 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release following her prison term that is scheduled to begin in June.

Court documents showed that a “significant portion” of the stolen funds was funneled to support the “struggling medical practice” of Romero’s daughter.

Federal authorities said Romero accepted responsibility for her crime, expressed remorse, and planned to get a job and pay back the stolen funds to the best of her ability. The highest salary Romero received from WSFCU was $40,000, so the $2.2 million she embezzled was nearly twice the amount she’s earned in her 30 years.

Within 30 days after she was fired in May 2019, Romero sold her home and her daughter sold the building housing her medical practice. Yet, none of these proceeds were used to pay restitution to WSFCU, noted the credit union’s board of directors in a letter to Judge Tuchi, court documents showed.

Romero’s lawyer did not respond to CU Times‘ request for comment. When reached on Monday, federal prosecutors in Phoenix declined to comment on whether they can take legal action to seize any available funds from the sales of Romero’s home and the medical practice building. Federal prosecutors also declined to comment on what percentage of the stolen $2.2 million was used for the medical practice building.

Romero admitted that she used several methods to steal the credit union’s money, including unauthorized cash withdrawals, transfers to accounts associated with members of her family and checks issued from WSFCU using forged signatures. In one example, the former CEO forged another WSFCU employee’s signature to issue a $7,000 cashier’s check number to herself. She concealed her crime by making false entries in the WSFCU financial statements.

The former executive even used her grandson’s bank account to launder a portion of the stolen money, and she also facilitated bad loans to family members, according to prosecutors.

“WSFCU itself only managed to survive because a portion of the loss has been covered by insurance; the rest will unfortunately be paid by the approximately 1,800 members of the credit union for many years to come,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “As one of the victim letters points out, Romero’s theft is comparable to stealing more than $1,000 from every single member of the credit union.”

At the end of 2019, the credit union posted a loss of $2,078,351, according to NCUA financial performance reports. At the end of 2020, however, WSFCU recorded a gain of $1,096,831, and a gain of $105,058 in December 2021, NCUA financial performance reports showed.

When reached on Monday, WSFCU officials declined to comment.