CINCINNATI The woman who created a credit counseling program at CinFed FCU was sentenced today to a year in prison for stealing as much as $400,000 from financially ailing credit union members she was supposed to be helping to trim their debts.
Sandra Sicking, 62, was convicted a second time of stealing from her clients, following last year’s guilty finding for embezzling $38,000 from elderly accounts at the credit union.
“You stole money from the people you were supposed to be helping,” Cinfed CEO Jay Sigler told Sicking during Tuesday’s sentencing.
CinFed hired Sicking in 1985 as a loan interviewer and to develop and budget and credit counseling program. Her job was to counsel and pay bills for members who needed assistance managing their money.
Sicking confessed to stealing from the program since at least 2006. She was fired in November 2011 after 26 years working for the credit union.
Under the credit counseling program the members would present their bills to Sicking and she would withdraw money from their accounts and buy money orders, which she used to pay the bills. She disguised her own personal expenses as those of her member/clients.
Prosecutors say Sicking stole from as many as 20 CinFed members going back ten years but may have stolen from others too but the paperwork does not extend further in order identify additional thefts.
