Former loan officer Kylie Jo Bench admitted she carried out a vehicle stripping scheme that victimized her former employer, the $199 million AIM Credit Union in Dubuque, Iowa.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams in Cedar Rapids approved Bench's agreement last week to plead guilty to one felony count of bankruptcy fraud and one felony count of aggravated identity theft. The sentence date has not been scheduled yet.
The 27-year-old Bench of Burlington, Iowa was hired by AIM in 2022 and worked at the credit union's Burlington branch. Federal court documents did not identify the credit union, but among the five credit unions headquartered in Dubuque, AIM is the only credit union that operates a branch in Burlington, NCUA profile reports showed.
Bench had two outstanding loan balances at two other unidentified credit unions, totaling $104,825 on two late-model vehicles, a Ford and a Dodge.
After she was hired, prosecutors said, Bench and another unidentified individual jointly refinanced the loans with AIM. That refinance loan paid off the $52,709 owed on the Ford and $52,116 owed on the Dodge, according to court documents.
In August 2022, without the credit union's knowledge, Bench sold the two vehicles at a car dealership in Cedar Rapids. She did not disclose or record the credit union's security interests on the vehicles.
Instead, Bench provided the car dealership with a letter, purportedly signed by one of AIM's executives on phony letterhead, which falsely stated that the loans were "paid off" and had "a zero balance."
But federal prosecutor said neither Bench nor the other unidentified individual had repaid the loans on the two vehicles they had recently refinanced.
By March 2023, Bench caused an attorney to file a document in a voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy case in which she falsely denied, under oath, that she transferred any property on account of a debt that benefited an insider. In fact, the revenue from the vehicles sold by Bench benefited the other unidentified individual who owed money on the vehicle loans, according to court documents.
Bankruptcy filings showed Bench listed a 2019 Dodge vehicle, valued at $50,000, which she claimed was repossessed by AIM, and a 2018 Ford F 150, also valued at $50,000, which she claimed was repossessed by the $11.1 billion GreenState Credit Union based in North Liberty, Iowa.
Bankruptcy documents also showed that Bench owed $79,000 to AIM.
The former credit union loan officer ran up a total debt tab of $262,634.
AIM did not respond to CU Times' phone and email requests for comment.
Peter Strozniak can be reached at peter.strozniak@arc-network.com.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.