An Arkansas woman who worked as a remote call center representative for New Hampshire’s largest credit union admitted she stole more than $300,000 from elderly member accounts and attempted to steal an additional $126,000, according to federal and state court documents.
Tyra Brown, 27, of Benton, Ark., a former employee of the $5.7 billion Service Federal Credit Union (SFCU) in Portsmouth, N.H., pleaded guilty to one felony count of wire fraud during a federal court hearing at Little Rock, Ark., last week.
Brown’s theft occurred from March to August in 2023. However, she allegedly continued to steal money from member accounts after leaving the credit union in May.
Federal prosecutors initially filed the wire fraud charge against Brown in U.S District Court in Concord, N.H., in June 2024. By July, the case was transferred to U.S. District Court in Little Rock because she carried out her fraudulent scheme while working as a SFCU remote call center representative in Arkansas.
According to federal court documents, Brown used the personal and security information of at least nine members to transfer their account funds via wire, debit or Zelle to other banks, including the $26 billion Arvest Bank in Fayetteville, Ark.
Through this fraud scheme the former credit union employee stole $301,674 and allegedly attempted to steal $126,851.
When Brown left her position in May 2023, she allegedly continued the theft, according to civil court documents filed by SFCU at the Circuit Court of Saline County Arkansas in August 2023. At that time, the credit union stated in court documents that it did not know how many member accounts Brown had compromised.
“Ms. Brown’s post-employment thefts of funds are similar: Ms. Brown and her associates have used information provided by Ms. Brown to wire funds out of the accounts of Service Federal’s customers via web-chat channels,” according to SFCU’s state court documents.
About two weeks after SFCU filed its civil lawsuit against Brown, the court granted an injunction that stopped her from accessing and using members’ information to siphon their funds.
In March 2024, the state court issued a separate civil judgement against Brown based on SFCU claims that she breached her fiduciary duty, committed fraud and broke her employment agreement. The court ordered Brown to pay SFCU $301,674 plus a 7.5% interest rate.
Brown’s federal court sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.
Contact Peter Strozniak at [email protected].
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