The Teller Who Bankrupted a Credit Union

NEW ALBANY, Ind. – Authorities have little hope of recovering any of the $7 million a teller stole from Obelisk FCU, forcing NCUA to liquidate the 70-year-old credit union earlier this year. That’s because the teller, Patricia Sherman, 49, gambled away the funds at riverboat casinos in southern Indiana, authorities said yesterday.
 
Sherman last week confessed to stealing the money by walking out of work on a weekly basis with stacks of $100 bills, some containing as much as $100,000, then cooking the vault report to hide the thefts. She was able to hide the scheme because she helped the supervisory committee conduct an unannounced audit of the cash vault twice a year, enabling her to manipulate the ledger.
 
The theft bankrupted the $52 million credit union and forced NCUA to sell its remnants to Centra CU in June.