Former Texas CU Employee Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison for Embezzlement

A federal judge sentenced a former employee of a Texas credit union to 41 months in prison for stealing more than $300,000 from member accounts, including a deceased member’s account, her teller drawer and the branch vault, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Austin said Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman also ordered Tracy Mikulencak, who worked as a teller at the $2.6 billion A+ Federal Credit Union in Austin, to pay $302,668 in restitution and to three years of supervised release following her prison term.

Mikulencak pleaded guilty to one felony count of embezzlement in November. In exchange for her guilty plea, federal prosecutors dropped four felony counts of bank fraud.

A+ FCU conducted an internal investigation that culminated in December 2022, when auditors discovered Mikulencak embezzled approximately $144,000 from her teller drawer and the vault from at least February 2020 when she also began working as a vault manager. The audit also revealed that Mikulencak pilfered $181,040 from three member accounts, according to court documents.

She was fired on Dec. 5, 2022.

The credit union first detected suspicious activity during the first quarter of 2020 when on March 27, the vault had an opening balance of $26,608. Mikulencak then processed two teller transfers of $500 and $9,000 to reduce the balance to $17,108. The monthly branch audit confirmed the lower balance, according to court documents. After that audit, Mikulencak voided the $9,000 transfer so that she could hide the missing funds. The credit union’s internal investigation also showed that there were other numerous transactions like this made by the former employee.

In addition, the A+ FCU audit revealed that Mikulencak processed five unauthorized withdrawals from the member account of K.B., totaling $23,040 in 2022.

Another member, R.D., contacted A+ FCU on Dec. 9, 2022, and reported that an unauthorized check withdrawal for $150,000 had been posted on Oct. 8 from a joint account he and his mother owned. Security video footage and teller transactions for Oct. 8 showed Mikulencak cashed the $150,000 check through her teller drawer, according to court documents. She then changed R.D.’s account to online statements from paper statements and altered them to conceal the $150,000 transaction.

On Dec. 29, 2022, A+ FCU also discovered a death certificate issued on March 4, 2020, for account holder P.T. The death certificate was found in the desk previously used by Mikulencak. The account for P.T. had not been updated to reflect his death. From this account, she made two cash withdrawals totaling $8,000, court records showed.