An 80-year-old Bristol Township woman was sentenced for embezzling credit union funds.
Joan Brown, who was better known as Joni Brown, was sentenced Thursday before U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson in Philadelphia to three years and eight months in prison, five years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,016,900 in restitution.
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Federal prosecutors said Brown ran a scheme where she would embezzle funds through her position as CEO of the Bensalem Township-based Service Center for Credit Unions.
From the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania:
In September 2020, the defendant pleaded guilty to six counts of embezzlement of credit union funds and 11 counts of making false entries in credit union records arising from her embezzlement of more than $1 million over several years from six small credit unions. Brown is the former CEO of the Service Center for Credit Unions, and in that position was well-known in the credit union community in the Philadelphia area. In fact, according to court document, in the past she had been described as “the face of credit unions in Philadelphia.” As a result of her actions, six small credit unions failed and were liquidated by the National Credit Union Association.
In 2016, the FBI served a search warrant on Brown’s home, which at the time was in Upper Moreland, Montgomery County, as part of an investigation relating to her role as CEO of the Bensalem Township business, according to the Credit Union Times.
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“Credit unions, by their nature, are cooperative institutions which rely on the support of everyone involved to function and remain safe places to save and borrow money,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Jennifer Williams. “In her position as the CEO of a credit union management company, Brown destroyed six such credit unions with her greed and dishonesty. Our office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to ensure that anyone who commits this type of fraud will be held accountable for their actions.”
Michael Driscoll, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia field office said Brown took advantage of the credit unions working with her organization, which helped manage their financial matters.
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“Joan Brown took full advantage of that trust, dipping into accounts and stealing money for herself, over and over again, for years. Her criminal actions caused the insolvency and shutdown of six local financial institutions. Brown is finally being held accountable for this extensive and clear-cut fraud,” he said.
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