NORRISTOWN, Penn. The former CEO at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 FCU has appealed last month’s conviction on charges she stole from the credit union to pay for her husband’s dental expenses and has asked a state court for a third try at exoneration.
A state appeals court threw out a 2010 conviction against Ann Clyburn, 47, on charges she paid herself unauthorized raises, but county prosecutors pressed the case on the dental expenses, resulting in last month’s guilty finding.
Now Clyburn’s lawyers have filed papers in Montgomery County Court claiming there was insufficient evidence to support the judge’s finding that she wrote four checks, totaling $1,342, from credit union business accounts to pay dental bills incurred by her husband.
“The defense contends there was no evidence and no eyewitnesses that Anne Clyburn actually printed or was aware of the issuance of these checks,” defense lawyer Samuel Stretton wrote in court papers seeking a new trial or a dismissal of the charges.
Clyburn, who previously served nearly a year in state prison for the pay raise charges, was given credit for the time she already spent behind bars and remains free to serve a three-year probationary period. The state appeals court had overturned Clyburn’s conviction on the pay raise charges because they said prosecutors should not have allowed her to defend herself at the first trial. Prosecutors chose not to retry the pay raise charges at the second trial.
During last month’s trial, prosecutors alleged Clyburn wrote four checks from credit union business accounts to pay dental bills incurred by her husband and then altered credit union ledger reports to make it appear that the checks were written for expenses for office supplies and payments to other legitimate credit union vendors.
But Clyburn denied the theft and her lawyer implied that someone other than Clyburn, perhaps a disgruntled employee, could have generated the checks and framed her.
