ALEXANDRIA, Va. NCUA on Friday banned Crystal Lankford, former CEO of H.B.E. CU, from the credit union industry for her criminal conviction of stealing $636,000 from the tiny Seward, Neb., credit union.
Lankford last year was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison for theft of the funds, much of it to go on shopping sprees, one of a recent spate of cases in which the manager of a tiny credit union took advantage of lax board oversight to loot the credit union’s coffers.
NCUA banned Holly Cowan, former manager of Lawrence County School Employees FCU, who last year was convicted and sent to prison for embezzling $285,000 over a five-year period from the now-defunct New Castle, Penn., credit union. Cowan was sentenced to 15 months in prison, three years of supervised release and ordered to pay restitution.
Also banned Friday were Lisa Hood, a former employee of AllSouth FCU in Columbia, S.C., who was sentenced to five years in prison and five years of probation on charges of financial identity fraud, crimes against a federally insured financial institution and breach of trust with fraudulent intent; and Keiona Rutledge, a former employee of G.I.C. FCU in Cleveland, Ohio, who pleaded guilty to the charges of trafficking and possessing criminal tools.
