UTCU Returned to Membership

ROCKY RIVER, Ohio-Two years after United Telephone Credit Union was turned over to American Share Insurance following a failure to correct problems at the institution, a judge has returned control to the membership. According to a report in Ohio’s The Plain Dealer, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Guy L. Reece II recently ruled that the take-over was not appropriate and ordered the Ohio Department of Commerce to remove ASI as conservator. Former United Telephone manager Martin Hughes, who led the institution for more than 40 years, was accused of mismanagement and millions in losses, along with his wife and other family members who served on the institution’s board. Hughes, who was in his eighties at the time of the take-over, will not return to the credit union, according to the report. United Telephone failed to fix problems related to self-dealing, poor investment, breach of duty, mismanagement, and tax noncompliance in 2002, The Plain Dealer said. Hughes was also being sued by two female credit union employees for sexual harassment. These were not his first entanglements with the law. Martin Hughes was among a number of presidential pardons as Bill Clinton was leaving office; he had been convicted of cooking the books for a union’s political action committee in a previous job. His son, Martin Hughes, Jr. told The Plain Dealer, “It’s been a long, frustrating few years. I’m pleased this ruling finally gives the members their credit union back.”