PHOENIX – An FBI agent last week testified in federal court he tried but failed to convince the wife of the former business loan director at AEA FCU to testify against him in the $60-million fraud case brought by federal prosecutors against William Liddle.
FBI agent Joseph Montoya testified he approached Rhonda Liddle in November 2009 in a church parking lot after she dropped off her two daughters. Montoya said he introduced himself and informed her he was conducting an investigation into her husband as well as local developers Frank Ruiz and Dan Thelen, who each received millions of dollars in AEA loans approved by Liddle.
Montoya testified he told Rhonda Liddle the consequences would be prison and encouraged her to cooperate with the FBI. He said Rhonda Liddle responded: “Are you asking me to choose between my husband of 25 years and the FBI?”
Liddle resigned from AEA the next month.
Rhonda Liddle is charged, along with her husband, with accepting more than $1 million in bribes in exchange for approving millions of dollars in bad MBLs while he was business loan manager at AEA. The bad loans cost the one-time $410-million Yuma credit union an estimated $58 million in losses and forced NCUA to take it under conservatorship in November 2010. NCUA last week reported AEA currently has negative net worth of $14 million and only remains afloat because of a $20-million emergency loan.
William Liddle is expected to take the witness stand when the trial resumes Monday morning.
Several witnesses testified last week that Liddle pushed MBLs on to local developers, encouraging them to take on increasing amounts of debt on what turned out to be failed projects. Local developer Frank Ruiz testified that Liddle continued to increase his credit in exchange for cash bribes even as he had trouble paying the loans on time. Ruiz has pleaded guilty to related charges in the case in exchange for his testimony.
A co-worker testified that under Liddle’s direction, she provided inaccurate reports to the credit union’s board of directors from information provided by Liddle. At his direction, the reports did not include the many large loans made to Dan Thelen and Frank Ruiz, who eventually ran up about $25 million in bad loans.
The co-worker said that neither of them had the money to pay their loans so funds were taken from one account to pay another, always with the approval of Liddle.
She also said that Ruiz had terrible credit and she was surprised that he was able to obtain so many loans. Ruiz made almost daily draws on his loans, she testified.
The co-worker also testified that a check printer located in the back of the department already had the signature of Ken Bredemeyer, who was president of AEA at the time. So all that needed to be done was put in the amount at Liddle’s direction when he ordered that a check be printed.
