Former Connecticut Credit Union CEO Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement Scheme

In December 2016, just three months after becoming president/CEO of the $38.4 million Skyline Financial Federal Credit Union in Waterbury, Conn., Tara Kewalis began what federal prosecutors described as a detailed and sophisticated embezzlement scheme that enabled her to conceal her crimes until she was fired in March 2021.

During a U.S. District Court hearing in New Haven on Wednesday, Kewalis, 50, of Beacon Falls, pleaded guilty to embezzling $254,532 from Skyline Financial. She is scheduled to be sentenced in March. Court documents showed Kewalis was a long-time employee of Skyline Financial, having worked there from May 1993 to June 2007, rejoining the credit union in 2008 and becoming its CEO in September 2016.

“This was an unfortunate occurrence which took place prior to my time here, and while I am glad to see that justice has been served, I hope Ms. Kewalis will get the help she needs,” Skyline Financial CEO James Higgins said. “Skyline has recovered the funds in question and, most important to me, our members’ accounts are and have always been safe and secure. Naturally that is our first priority as a credit union.”

Prosecutors did not say how the embezzlement was discovered, but they did say the FBI was contacted following a Skyline Financial investigation.

Kewalis’ attorney, Charles E. Tiernan III in New Haven, said federal rules prevent him from commenting on a pending case.

She began the scheme by diverting credit union funds to various accounts held in her name, including her Christmas Club and Vacation Club accounts, using the internal accounting system to charge those stolen funds against Skyline Financial’s group health insurance and other employee benefits, according to a plea agreement Kewalis signed with prosecutors. Dividing the stolen funds among a number of accounts helped to camouflage her theft, the plea agreement noted.

Kewalis also booked the charges of stolen funds against the credit union’s general ledger as various expenses that she knew were for Skyline Financial’s operations such as ATM settlements, insurance payments and the purchase of COVID-19 cleaning supplies, court documents showed.

To cover her credit card payments on numerous accounts, she transferred funds from Skyline’s general ledger, making sure she kept the cards off the delinquency list so that any high credit card balances would not be detected by the credit union’s board, according to the plea agreement.

As early as July 2017, Kewalis increased her personal credit limit numerous times on a credit card issued by the credit union. Moreover, she increased the credit limit on her cards 27 times, using seven different credit cards in various names, including family members, a friend and a fictitious name, prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement.

The former CEO caused the credit union to make 71 credit card payments of more than $100,000.

In the plea agreement, Kewalis also admitted to initiating transfers from the general ledger to fund cashier’s checks made payable to one of her friends. She convinced her friend to cash the checks by falsely claiming the money came from an inheritance, when in truth the cashier’s checks that she purportedly “gifted” to her friend were funded by the credit union.

She also made transfers from the credit union’s general ledger to the accounts of family members and withdrew the funds from those accounts as cash or transferred the funds to an account in her own name.

After the fraud was uncovered, Kewalis paid $116,356 in restitution from her 401(k) retirement account, the plea agreement showed. The outstanding restitution is $138,176, which does not include expenses incurred by the credit union for forensic accounting and legal services in connection with the discovery and prosecution of the fraud.

Prosecutors did not say how Kewalis spent the money or why she committed the embezzlement.