PITTSBURGH – The CEO of defunct Lawrence County School Employees’ FCU pleaded guilty to fraud and embezzlement in the 2010 failure of the one-time $7-million New Castle credit union.
Prosecutors allege that Holly Cowan and her assistant manager, Stacy Attisano, embezzled more than $900,000 from the tiny credit union by crediting their accounts with fictitious deposits and phony payments against their personal loans.
The credit union was liquidated by NCUA in March 2010. Its remnants were acquired by First Choice FCU.
Cowan pleaded guilty to embezzling approximately $222,888 from the credit union and to attempting to evade paying a large part of the income tax she owed to the U.S. government for 2009 by filing a fraudulent tax return.
The two managers are being sued by CUMIS Insurance Society in a civil suit seeking restitution for the credit union’s losses.
