Since the time she was hired as a bookkeeper at the $2 million SCICAP Credit Union in 1978, Linda Lee Clark began stealing from the cooperative in the small rural town of Chariton, Iowa.

By the time her theft finally surfaced in August 2015, she embezzled more than $2.4 million.

The 68-year-old grandmother pleaded guilty to embezzlement by a credit union employee July 15 in U.S. District Court in Des Moines, Iowa.

Federal prosecutors in court documents said Clark concealed her theft by maintaining two sets of accounting records on the credit union’s data processing system. She also refused to allow other credit union employees, including SCICAP CU CEO Connie Banks and others, to access the system.

How did Clark keep employees from accessing the data processing system for nearly four decades? Her lawyer, F. Montgomery Brown of West De Moines, Iowa, said she just told them 'no.'

Although Brown could not divulge why his client stole $2.4 million, or about $60,000 annually, he said Clark decided to reveal her crime on one Sunday night in August 2015 to Banks. On Monday, she explained in detail to auditors how she committed her 37-year scheme and from which accounts she embezzled funds.

“She reported it,” Brown said. “They weren’t going to discover it, in her opinion, and that she wanted to tell them about it anyway. She accepts responsibility and she knows she is going to serve some measure of prison time. She is an elderly grandmother, and I hope she doesn’t die in prison.”

The first accounting database maintained by Clark included member loans and share balances including loan payments and deposits. She used this database to generate member statements to report balances members would have expected.

The second accounting database included the member loan and share information that Clark provided to the examiners and call report information. The account balances in this database included members’ actual account balances reflected in the first database, but minus the funds Clark stole from their accounts, according to court documents.

Clark redirected members’ deposits in her account and the accounts of her children. She also initiated unauthorized withdrawals of funds from SCICAP member accounts into her personal account and the accounts of her children.

Court documents do not explain why Clark stole the funds or how she spent the $2.4 million. When contacted Tuesday, federal prosecutors declined to comment on the case.

In August 2015, the Iowa Credit Union Division placed the credit union into receivership, and then tendered the receivership to the NCUA.

The $574 million Community 1st Credit Union of Ottumwa, Iowa, assumed most of the SCICAP CU’s 858 members, assets and loans.

Clarke faces up to 30 years in prison. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 15.

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Credit Union Bookkeeper Steals $2.4M Over 37 Years

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