PHOENIX – The prosecution’s first witness in the criminal trial of the former director of business lending at Yuma’s AEA FCU testified in federal court yesterday how the one-time credit union executive, his former close friend, convinced him to take out millions of dollars in member business loans and showered him with cash in return.
Dan Thelen testified in federal court how William Liddle, AEA’s former vice president of business lending, gave him a loan to start Desert Capital Partners LLC in Yuma. Thelen said Liddle also suggested that he purchase another property owned by local developer Frank Ruiz. Thelen testified Liddle eventually got him to take on more debt and had him take out a loan for $3.3 million dollars to buy the Yuma Fun Factory. Thelen’s MBL debt with the credit union eventually reached almost $8 million
Ruiz pleaded guilty in June to paying Liddle and his wife Rhonda Liddle more than $1 million in cash, a home, luxury vehicles and other benefits to secure more than $22 million of MBLs and is scheduled to testify against them during the trial.
The Liddles are charged with 68 counts of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy for allegedly approving tens of millions of dollars in MBLs in exchange for bribes in a scheme that left the one-time $410 million credit union teetering.
Subsequent losses on the MBLs, estimated at as much as $58 million, forced NCUA to seize the credit union in December 2010. The losses have pushed the credit union, chartered in 1942 to serve members the Arizona Education Association, deep into the red and had erased all of its net worth at the end of last year’s third quarter.
Prosecutors submitted exhibits yesterday showing checks written to Dan Thelen from the credit union in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Under Liddle's direction, Thelen was to open a bank account at Chase Bank and then turn around and withdraw the same amount in $100 denominations and give them to one of the Liddles, they said.
Prosecutors say Liddle, who was hired at the credit union in 2004, approved 50 MBLs totaling more than $22 million to Ruiz between March 2005 and November 2009. In return, Ruiz, owner of Desert Best Distributing, Desert Best Technologies, Desert Best Enterprises and the Yuma Fun Factory, among others, funneled more than $1 million back to the Liddles, including $565,000 to buy a home, a membership at the Yuma Country Club, $40,000 to buy a Toyota Sequoia, $9,600 to buy a Corvette and $246,200 in cash.
Thelen was the first to take the witness stand Tuesday in the trial that began last week in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona and is scheduled to last until March 2.
