WASHINGTON – A junior loan officer was fired from District of Columbia Teachers FCU after he was caught taking commissions on $138,000 of unsecured personal loans, many of them to borrowers who were not even members of the credit union or weren’t in its field of membership.
The loan officer, identified as Jevon Billups, approved the loans based on false information, including misstating the borrower’s income, miscomputing debt ratios or otherwise ignoring debt ratios, according to court documents in the case. The borrower would get only a portion of the loan, with Billups keeping the rest, the documents indicate.
Billups approved at least 20 loans under the scheme for $138,315.
As a result of the scheme, the credit union lost almost $80,000, which was reimbursed by a bond claim to CUNA Mutual Group’s CUMIS Insurance Society.
CUNA Mutual, which is suing Billups to recover the payout, said it seeks recovery whenever possible. “We file a number of these recovery actions every year. As an insurer, it's a service that garners our resources and expertise to make the parties responsible for causing losses pay for the losses,” said Phil Tschudy, spokesman for the credit union insurer. “In addition to just being fair by making the wrongdoer pay for the loss, it also benefits our insureds. To the extent we are successful, it reduces the overall cost of risk transfer, which helps keep premiums down for credit unions and their members.
