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A federal judge ordered a former business loan processor and her boyfriend to pay more than $750,000 in restitution for opening nearly $3 million in unauthorized lines of credit that caused more than $1 million in losses for a California credit union.
During a federal court hearing in Los Angeles held earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Andre Birotte Jr. ordered Indira Mohabir and Phillip Cook to begin their sentences, which were placed on hold until issues involving restitution were resolved.
In January 2022, Judge Birotte sentenced Mohabir, who worked at Western Federal Credit Union's Torrance office (Western is now the $4.1 billion Unify Financial Credit Union based in Plano, Texas), to one day in federal prison and 18 months of home confinement. Cook was sentenced to six months in prison and 12 months of home confinement. At that time, federal prosecutors recommended a 57-month prison sentence for Mohabir because she refused to accept responsibility for her conduct, including refusing to acknowledge that she did anything wrong, or that she should bear any responsibility or face any consequences for the large fraud scheme that she perpetrated, all of which indicates a strong possibility of recidivism, according to a sentencing memo filed by prosecutors.
What's more, after she was fired, Mohabir landed a new job at a bank and used her position to open additional unauthorized lines of credit for her boyfriend.
During last year's sentencing hearing, Judge Birotte did not issue a restitution order. A special agent with the FDIC's Inspector General was hired to calculate the restitution and to ensure it was accurate.
In his July 3 amended judgement, Judge Birotte ordered Mohabir to pay $228,651 in restitution and he ordered Cook to pay $533,520 in restitution.
Mohabir used her position as a business loan processor to open $2.6 million in unauthorized credit lines for Cook, with whom she was in a romantic relationship. Cook and others working with him withdrew more than $1.6 million from the fraudulently obtained lines of credit.
The credit union's recovery efforts began immediately following the fraud's discovery and continued for months. Unify Financial initially recovered $547,672, leaving a new loss of more than $1 million, according to the special agent's report. The credit union was insured against this type of loss and received a payment of $1,045,751 from CUMIS. Following this payment, Unify Financial was able to recover an additional $300,000 from funds that had been frozen at another financial institution. Those funds were remitted to CUMIS.
According to court documents, a total of $712,171 in restitution will be paid to CUMIS and $50,000 in restitution will be paid to UNIFY Financial.
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