PHILADELPHIA – Federal authorities found the former CEO of Borinquen FCU who disappeared prior to Tuesday’s scheduled guilty plea in federal court for fraud related to last year’s failure of the $7 million credit union—in the county jail where he was being held on unrelated drunk driving charges.
Ignacio “Nacho” Morales, 40, had voluntarily surrendered to Philadelphia authorities Tuesday morning on a bench warrant that stemmed from a 2008 DUI charge—hours before he was scheduled to plead guilty to a $2.3 million fraud that sunk the community development credit union.
Morales' plea hearing to the credit union charges has been rescheduled for Sept. 4.
Prosecutors said Morales embezzled $600,000 from the CDCU to purchase real estate, and took $560,000 from Borinquen to attempt to purchase 15 kilograms of cocaine. They also say he failed to deposit $700,000 into an account of a Borinquen member, and instead used the money for his own purposes.
The CDCU was chartered in 1974 to serve several hundred families in a low-income neighborhood of Philadelphia.
