ST. LOUIS – A federal appeals court denied a request by long-time First Community CU President Richard Lange to pay $250,000 he was convicted of embezzling from the Columbia Heights, Minn., credit union now known as Financial One CU.
Lange, who ran the credit union for 26 years and built it from a $1 million institution to more than $54 million, pleaded guilty in 2008 to two of 55 charges of siphoning credit union funds for his own purposes. Authorities said he used the credit union as "his own personal piggy bank.”
Prosecutors allege he used $300,000 of credit union money to: pay premiums on a $1.5 million life insurance policy; pay off his and his wife's Visa bill; buy three homes; pay the property taxes on those homes; buy a $17,000 Chevy Suburban, $1,981 in Tiffany jewelry for his wife and a $5,355 riding lawnmower, and even pay the paper boy $106.64 for home newspaper delivery that was never authorized by the board. Prosecutors said Lange regularly cashed checks made out to the credit union and either deposited them into his own or family members' accounts.
Under a deal with prosecutors, Lange agreed to plead guilty to two of 55 charges against him, including embezzling $11,000 of credit union funds and income tax evasion on the theft, but to pay almost $250,000 in restitution.
Lange, now serving a 21-month prison term, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to lower the restitution order because he said that he should be entitled to $155,000 in sales commissions on credit union repos that were sold under his management.
But in denying his appeal, the court said this theory was soundly rejected by the lower court at Lange’s sentencing.
"Lange cites no authority for the astonishing proposition that an employee is entitled to this kind of credit if the employer profited from business transactions conducted by the employee while embezzling," said the court in its ruling.
