Karen Janoski, president/CEO of the $62 million Greater Pittsburgh Police Federal Credit Union, suspected that janitors were doing more than cleaning the cooperative one recent morning.

It's a good thing she listened to her instincts.

A police investigation found that custodians Bonnie Hendzel and Mary Tumminello of Stowe, Pa., allegedly stole several items such as soft drinks, office supplies and promotional clothing. Moreover, they also took signature cards and files that contained the personal information, including names, date of births, addresses, phone numbers and Social Security numbers, of 32 credit union members, including police officers.

However, Janoski disputed crucial details of the police investigation in regards to the signature cards and files and whether any personal information of members had been compromised.

Janoski believed Hendzel and Tumminello never had an opportunity to use the personal information of members to commit identity fraud because they were quickly apprehended and charged by police.

But Major Crimes Commander Rashall Brackney of the Pittsburgh Police Bureau said it is unknown whether the custodians had the opportunity to use members' personal information because some of it is still missing.

Pittsburgh police said that the missing signature cards were actually files of applications for either loans or to open accounts. Some of the documents from those files are missing.

“The officers observed the paperwork was tampered with, that the suspects ripped off the first pieces of paper to the applications of several documents, including the names, addresses, phone numbers and account numbers, leaving only the cover page,” Brackney told CU Times Wednesday. “It was apparent that the staple holding all the documents together was missing along with additional information regarding several members. The whereabouts of this additional information of these members is unknown at this time.”

Brackney also said these files were in an unsecured area of the credit union's office, noting surveillance footage showed the custodians looking through paperwork containing some members' confidential information,

However, Janoski's details about the police investigation differ.

“We have been told by the investigating team that everything has been returned and that there were no other documents,” she explained. “There were no loan files taken. Our information came directly from those that investigated the matter.”

Janoski also explained that a signature card is one card and does not include multiple documents.

“We do staple copies of license and home banking applications to the signature cards,” she said. “The staples may have been removed and re-stapled, but all items are in our possession. All 32 items were not signature cards. Some of the 32 taken items consisted of written address change requests that had no social, birth date or license information. Some were home banking applications, which also had no social or birth date or license information.”

She also contended the files were in a secure area of the credit union.

Janoski added, “Our signature cards most certainly are located in a secure area of the credit union. The cleaning people, however, did have access to this area for cleaning purposes (to sweep and empty a shredder).”

Brackney, however, said the information Janoski reported from the police reports is accurate and correct.

Nevertheless, Janoski said the 32 members were notified about what happened and were offered free credit monitoring for one year, as well as free professional identity recovery services if identity theft was suspected because of this incident.

Janoski said she became suspicious about the custodians when they were still at the credit union office after the staff arrived the morning of Jan. 8.

“They should have been out of here when we got there,” Janoski said. “We noticed things weren't clean and when they finally left, they took a ton of extra garbage bags compared to the garbage we normally have.”

After an employee noticed something was missing from a cupboard, Janoski said she reviewed the security camera footage.

“We came across what we wished never would have happened, but it did,” she said. “They went through every single one of our employees' desk drawers and other stuff. It was very disturbing.”

Janoski called police and filed a report.

After police questioned the custodians and searched their home, Hendzel and Tumminello were arrested and charged with 32 counts each of theft, burglary and criminal conspiracy. They were arraigned on those charges Tuesday.

Instant Insights /

Credit Union CEO Sweeps Janitors&rsquo; Crimes

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