LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Court of Appeals overturned the sentence for the former chief financial officer for Cascades Community FCU, who was sentenced in 2008 to five-to-20 years in prison for embezzling $339,000 from the credit union to cover his losses in the stock market.
The state appellate court found the sentencing guidelines in the case – a point system used to calculate a range of possible penalties – were improperly calculated.
The prosecution had argued that Terry Brandt abused his authority status when he committed the crime and he was given points for this. But the state panel ruled that Brandt did not abuse his authority by exploiting a victim, which in this case was the credit union.
Brandt wired money from the credit union's general account to his personal trading accounts at least nine times between October 2006 and January 2008 to cover losses on his own stock transactions.
