Sentence Still Not Handed Down

In one of the strangest cases in NCUA history the former manager of American Samoa Government Employees FCU has been languishing in a minimum security prison in suburban Virgina more than two years after his conviction of plundering the Pacific island's only credit union.

But Bernard Gurr, who maintains his innocence, must still await his sentencing before launching what is expected to be an appeal of his fraud and embezzlement convictions in the 1993 failure of the $7-million institution.

Gurr's public defender, Joseph Roll Conte told The Credit Union Journal a sentencing hearing for Gurr has been delayed again and might be moved to Honolulu where he can more easily summon witnesses for Gurr's defense.

Meantime, the price tag for the Gurr case, which cost the National CU Share Insurance Fund about $4.5 million in losses, continues to rise, with one source indicating the costs of the multi-year effort and bringing NCUA personnel, investigators, prosecutors and witnesses back and forth 9,000 miles to the nation's capital where Gurr was tried, is approaching $1 million.

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