Terrorized by criminals, victimized by police investigators andprejudged by people in his community, the media and the creditunion industry, Matthew Yussman lived under constant stress andsuspicion for more than a year.

But the exhilaration of exoneration finally came March 2 after aMaine man admitted in court documents that he and another maninvaded the Achieve Financial Credit Union CFO’s home and ducttaped a bomb to his body in a failed attempt to rob the $122million Achieve Financial branch in New Britain, Conn., on Feb. 23,2015.

Ironically, what led the two men to commit this crime was to getcash to support a floundering national company they operated, whichprovided financial services for inmates, giving them access tomoney after they were released from state and federal prisons,according to federal prosecutors.

After they were captured in November, Michael Anthony Benanti, 43, of Lake Harmony, Pa., and BrianScott Witham, 45, of Waterville, Maine, were charged with multiplefelonies including armed bank extortion of the $929 million Y-12Federal Credit Union in Oak Ridge, Tenn., SmartBank in Knoxville inJuly and the $106 million Northeast Community Credit Union inElizabethton, Tenn., in October.

The victims, Mark Ziegler, president/CEO of Y-12 and Brooke Lyons, a tellerat Northeast Community, declined to comment because of the pendinglegal process. Although Witham agreed to plead guilty to six felonycharges, Benanti pleaded not guilty and may go to trial.

Benanti and Witham took Ziegler and his wife and child hostage,and threatened to cut off the fingers of Ziegler’s wife if hedidn’t return on time with the money. Lyons was taken hostage bythe two men as she was putting her three-year-old son in his carseat and then forced to rob the credit union.

In both cases, the suspects didn’t get any money and no one wasphysically harmed.

“I was very relieved and very happy,” Yussman said in an exclusive interview with CU Times.“I high-fived everybody in my office. I was so excited that thishas finally passed and there will be no more thoughts of when I gowalking into a mall or somewhere else, people aren’t going to bewhispering behind my back, ‘Hey, there’s that guy who did thosecrimes.’”

He explained, “I can hopefully say now that I’m going to bestress free on this. The hardest part was that all of this was inthe back of my mind thinking when this was going to be resolved.Now that it is resolved, I envision that I will get back tonormal.”

Yussman, who doubles as Achieve Financial’s security trainer,shared how he managed the eight-hour hostage ordeal, the gruelingpolice investigation and the constant stress of suspicion.

“The most terrifying part for me was when I got to the creditunion and I’m in the car strapped to what I think is a bomb and I’mjust sitting there by myself waiting,” Yussman recalled. “Andthere’s nothing to do. Your mind plays awful tricks on you and youstart thinking of things like, Am I going to feel this? Am I goingto know if it goes off? There’s a security camera out front. Arethey watching this? Am I going to blow up with them watching? Thatwas by far the worst part of it.”

Benanti and Witham told Yussman the bomb would explode at 11a.m. and that the bomb under his mother’s bed would detonate if hefailed to bring back money to them.

After his car was surrounded by police, he had to strip down tohis waist in February’s frigid temps for several hours until thebomb squad determined the device was fake. After being treated forhypothermia at a local hospital, he went to the police station,where investigators grilled him with questions until he finallyagreed to take a lie detector test, which he failed. Thatinformation was later released in public court documents, puttinghim under a cloud of suspicion in his community and the media.

His lawyer, Richard Brown of Hartford, Conn., dismissed thatpolygraph test as totally unreliable and inaccurate because Yussmanwas traumatized for hours. Though many police departments usepolygraphs as an investigative tool, most courts do not allowpolygraph tests to be used as evidence because they have been shownto be unreliable.

“I felt like the police victimized me because they treated meright off the bat as a suspect instead of a victim,” he said. “Andthen I felt victimized by the media because the media was printingall this stuff trying to make connections as to why they thought Iwas guilty.”

Police also questioned Yussman’s 71-year-old mother.

“When police asked my mother how she knew I didn’t do this, mymother said, ‘Because if he did do it, he’d be sitting on a beachright now and you wouldn’t know where he was.’”

In the March 16, 2016 print issue of Credit Union Times,read full details on how Yussman managed the eight-hour hostageordeal and grueling police investigation. Plus, learn how the twosuspects’ bank and credit union crime spree began.