CLEVELAND – The ex-wife of a purported Balkans crime figure was sentenced yesterday to a day in jail and to pay $3.3 million in restitution believed deposited in Macedonian bank accounts for her role in the 2010 collapse of St. Paul Croatian FCU, the biggest credit union fraud ever.
Rose Ann Nikolovski, 48, is the former wife of Koljo Nikolovski, the purported head of a crime syndicate in Skopje, Macedonia, who pleaded guilty last month to siphoning more than $6 million from the one-time $240-million credit union as part of a widespread loan fraud. As part of his plea agreement Koljo Nikolovski, known as “Koljo the American” for the time he spent in the U.S., has agreed to forfeit $800,00 in deposits in Albanian and Macedonian banks.
Rose Ann Nikolovski is schedueld to report to federal prison a week from today, next Wednesday, to serve her 24-hour sentence.
Another defendant in the huge fraud–estimated to cost the National CU Share Insurance Fund $170 million in losses–was also sentenced yesterday. Daniel Kocher, 72, was also sentenced to a day in federal prison and to pay $260,000 in restitution to the estate of the defunct credit union, which has accrued to NCUA.
So far ten individuals have pleaded guilty to obtaining loans they never intended to repay from the credit union. Several of the borrowers were family members of Koljo Nikolovski who transferred the loan proceeds to him. Charges are still pending against another seven defendants in the case.
Among those convicted so far is Anthony Raguz, the former CEO of St. Paul Croatian, who admitted to accepting more than $500,000 in bribes to approve the fraudulent loans. Last month, prominent Cleveland developer, Eddy Zai, was charged with obtaining $17 million in fraudulent loans from the big credit union failure.
Raguz admitted he approved more than 1,000 loans totaling $70 million under the scheme. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
