CINCINNATI – CinFed CU has asked a federal court to halt a former credit counselor for troubled members from shielding her assets from a financial judgment the credit union is seeking because it believes she embezzled as much as $400,000 from the members she was paid to help pay bills.
A suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio asks the court to bar Sandra Sicking from secreting homes she owns in Tennessee and Indiana and an IRA retirement account in a revocable trust that could protect those assets from a civil judgment.
CinFed alleges Sicking, who helped start the credit union’s Budget and Credit Counseling Program to counsel and help members who had trouble managing their money, directed the funds the members paid her to pay their own bills for her own purposes. Under the program, the members would present their bills to Sicking with the understanding she would withdraw the money from the members’ accounts to purchase money orders, then mail the money orders to creditors. But CinFed claims Sicking began using the funds from the members’ accounts to buy additional money orders, which she used to pay her own bills.
Sicking, claims the suit, disguised her personal bills as legitimate expenses for the credit counseling program.
The credit union said Sicking acknowledged she has been stealing from the program since at least 2006. It said she was fired in November 2011 after 26 years working for the credit union.
A lawyer for Sicking did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.
