The accounting firm that reviewed the financials and performed audits of the defunct New London Security Federal Credit Union's records has denied claims that it failed to detect fraudulent activity, an allegation made by NCUA in a March 19 complaint.

According to several media reports, Beller, Shepatin and Co. PC, Robert Shutsky, an employee at the accounting firm, and Ed Lorah and Associates LLC, which was a successor firm, filed a June 11 response denying the NCUA's claim of professional malpractice. Marisa Lanza and Andrew Pisanelli, the defendants' attorneys, according to local publications, did not return calls to Credit Union Times.

Since at least 1994, New London used Beller Shepatin to conduct audits and reviews of its financial statements, including accounts with A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. In several reports, the accounting firm concluded that the CU's statements fairly presented, in all material respects, the financial condition of the credit union, NCUA said in its complaint. Issued in October 2001 and October 2007, the auditor's reports showed the CU's assets at $10.4 million and more than $12.4 million, respectively. New London continued to make deposits into the A.G. Edwards account based on the reports' standings. Around July 2008, it was discovered that an investment account did not exist at Wachovia, formerly A.G. Edwards.