HARRISBURG, Pa. – The former president of the failed Greater Harrisburg Community CU was sentenced to five months in prison and fined $10,000 Friday for his convictions on making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development .
Carl Payne, 67, pleaded guilty in December 2007 to two misdemeanors in connection with charges that he steered $835,000 of federal funds to the now defunct community development credit union.
"It was a labor of love for me for 35 years," Payne told the court of his career working with low-income housing. "But I messed up and I’m paying the price."
Payne served simultaneously as chief executive of the Harrisburg Housing Authority, pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements to authorities who were investigating the funding of the fledgling CDCU.
The credit union was chartered in 2001 but shuttered by NCUA in 2006 with losses of $264,000 for the first nine months of 2005, after eking out a $3,700 gain for 2004.
Payne was charged with creating and backdating documents to obstruct the federal grand jury's investigation into how more than $800,000 in funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were moved from the housing authority to the credit union. He was also charged with lying about receiving roughly $134,000 from the housing authority for his work with the credit union.
