NORRISTOWN, Penn. The former chief executive at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 FCU on Friday was convicted in state court of stealing $1,342 from the credit union by writing credit union checks to herself.
But Anne Clyburn, 47, lost her gamble she would be exonerated at the trial her second on embezzlement charges after serving a year in state prison for a 2011 conviction on related charges. Those charges, that Clyburn gave herself $32,469 in unauthorized raises, eventually were thrown out and Clyburn given a new trial when the appeals court ruled she should not have been allowed to act as her own lawyer.
The state did not retry Clyburn, who headed the credit union from 2000 to 2007, on the unauthorized raise charges but on related charges of writing credit union checks to herself.
The former head of a Plymouth-based credit union testified that she never used credit union funds to pay her husband’s dental bills of approximately $1,343 in summer 2004. “I had plenty of money in my bank account, credit cards and our salaries,” Clyburn testified.
However, credit union manager Tina Wellington, who was serving as the credit union’s loan officer at the time, testified she saw at least one check made out to a doctor come across the credit union’s check printer. The check did not have the necessary documentation on it, according to Wellington, who said she placed it on Clyburn’s desk because Clyburn was responsible for all checks sent out to cover credit union expenses and expense accounts.
The judge, accepting a sentencing agreement reached between prosecutors and the defense lawyer, immediately sentenced Clyburn to six months already served to 23 months in jail and three years’ probation.
Clyburn, who previously served nearly a year in state prison for an earlier conviction related to the same charges, was given credit for the time she already spent behind bars. That previous conviction had been overturned and Clyburn’s trial this week was a retrial.
