Former Manager Charged With LootingCDCU

THOMASVILLE, Ga. - (06/13/05) -- The former manager of UnifiedSingers FCU and three family members were charged in a federalindictment unsealed last week with an embezzlement scheme thatforced the failure of the well-known community development creditunion in April 2002. Jean Pogue, who ran Unified Singers FCU for 15year, her husband Joseph Pogue, their daughter CassandraMontgomery, and her husband, Everett Montgomery, were charged withstealing as much as $1.2 million by opening fictitious accounts andcreating loans for the accounts, then transferring the money totheir own accounts for personal use over a nine-year period. Thefour are also charged with using a credit union credit card forpersonal purchases and writing checks on credit union accounts tobuy private vehicles. The indictment charges the four conspired tocreate loans for a local church and a funeral home that weremembers of the credit union, without he consent of the church orthe funeral home, then used the loan proceeds for their own use.The CDCU, which had less than $1.5 million in assets when it wasshut down by NCUA in April 2002, was often held up as an example ofthe good works of low-income credit unions and was cited by theBrookings Institute in a 2001 study for its performance in servinglow-income communities.