Former Employee Stole $129,000 From Elderly Member’s Account

Lee Michael Griffin, who stole more than $129,000 from an elderly member while he worked at AlaskaUSA Federal Credit Union and continued to siphon her funds after leaving his job, was sentenced to one year and a day in prison by a Seattle federal judge on Tuesday.

Griffin pleaded guilty to one felony count of bank fraud in August. AlaskaUSA FCU declined CU Times’ request for comment.

The federal judge also ordered Griffin to pay $129,194 in restitution and imposed three years of supervised release following his prison term.

Griffin began working as a teller for the $11.9 billion AlaskaUSA FCU’s branch in Mt. Vernon, Wash. in 2015 and sometime later became a financial services representative. But it wasn’t until April 2017 when he accessed an elderly member’s account and used it to transfer $7,599 to one of his accounts to pay off a $7,000 loan at another financial business.

Over the next three years through January 2020, even after he had left as an employee of the credit union, he systematically made 65 additional unauthorized electronic fund transfers out of the victim’s account and into several of his own accounts at other financial institutions. He used the stolen money to pay his mortgage, credit card bills, buy a new car and pay for other personal expenses, prosecutors said in court documents.

The victim’s account settings had been changed to electronic statements in lieu of paper statements that would have been mailed to the elderly member who had been managing her finances. However, she did not have access to a computer.

What’s more, the elderly member’s account was opened years earlier for the limited purpose of holding proceeds of previously acquired certificates of deposit, and it was not considered to be an active account. According to prosecutors, that lack of activity was the likely reason the account was targeted by Griffin.

“The theft was discovered when the victim was hospitalized, and a nephew began assisting with her finances,” prosecutors said. “He discovered the thefts from the account and worked at length with the credit union to ensure the funds were restored.”

Griffin, who now lives in Gilbert, Ariz., paid full restitution to the credit union at the sentencing hearing, according to prosecutors.

He is expected to serve his prison term in Arizona, court documents showed.