Former CEO of Merged Texas CU Faces Embezzlement Allegations

Chartered in 1937, Prairie View Federal Credit Union was one of the oldest continually operational federal credit unions established by a historically Black college, Prairie View A & M University in Texas.

But that unique 83-year relationship came to an unceremonious end soon after it was discovered the credit union’s president/CEO, Gloria Jean Hall, was allegedly embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars, forcing PVFCU to merge at the end of last year.

Hall, 56, of Prairie View, was arrested on Wednesday and appeared in federal court. She did not enter a plea when presented with a grand jury indictment that charged her with three felony counts of embezzlement and one felony count of making false entries in financial records. Her arraignment hearing on the charges is scheduled for next week. She was released on a $50,000 bond.

Hall was named CEO in 2000. During her two-decade tenure at the $3.1 million, 628-member PVFCU, she did little to modernize the credit union’s services and recordkeeping, prosecutors wrote in court documents. They noted, for example, that she did not offer online and mobile banking, ATM service and that members had to come to the credit union’s sole branch to conduct transactions.

“Essentially, Hall single-handedly approved all share secured loans, personally communicated with major account holders and exclusively handled their financial transactions,” prosecutors wrote. “Hall singularly worked with the credit union bookkeeper, and controlled access to all the books and records of the credit union. Hall handled the shredding of credit union documents, and she controlled the information and documents provided to the PVFCU board of directors.”

But it wasn’t until January 2010 when Hall allegedly began her fraudulent schemes by using 34 accounts, the majority of which belonged to elderly members. She allegedly embezzled approximately $211,563 from their accounts, according to court documents.

What’s more, Hall allegedly created loans totaling nearly $791,000, withdrew the loans and cashed $76,772 in numerous unauthorized checks from member accounts for her own personal use and benefit.

Prosecutors also said Hall allegedly fraudulently formed 58 nominee loans by creating fake share loans in the names of relatives and friends. She allegedly transferred money across the loans to make payments among them, moved funds mainly from elderly member accounts into the accounts of her relatives and friends, and created phony monthly loan statements.

Her alleged crimes continued through August 2020, prosecutors said.

Because of its poor financial condition, the NCUA’s Q1 Merger Activity and Insurance Report showed PVFCU got the approval to merge with the $339 million, 24,649-member Cy-Fair Federal Credit Union in Houston.

From 2010 to 2020 when Hall was allegedly pilfering funds, PVFCU posted meager gains in two of those years and showed mostly double-digit losses in eight of those years. At the end of 2013 and 2020, however, PVFCU recorded losses of $127,561 and $224,509, respectively. At the end of 2021, the credit union posted a loss of $20,935, according to NCUA financial performance reports.