A former CEO, who pled guilty to stealing nearly $2 million from the now-defunct Veterans Health Administration Credit Union, will start the New Year in prison.
A Michigan judge last week sentenced Fuataina Afutiti, 50, of Westland to two and half years to up to 20 years in state prison. She was also ordered to pay a restitution balanced of $1.2 million.
It is unknown, however, how many years the former CEO will spend in prison. Afutiti’s court appointed attorney and the state prosecutor did not return a phone call from CU Times seeking comment.
Afutiti was ordered to begin her prison sentence on Jan. 4.
Her embezzlement led to the liquidation of the Detroit cooperative in March after examiners from the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services examiners uncovered irregularities and cash shortfalls they found in books. When questioned about these discrepancies, Afutiti could not provide a logical explanation, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s office.
With the stolen funds from 2012 to this year, she leased or bought several cars, including a 2013 Mercedes Benz, and a motorhome. Afutiti also used the credit union’s money to pay for vacations, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s office.
State prosecutors did not explain how Afutiti embezzled the funds.
VHACU 1,297 members, assets, loans and shares were assumed by the $232 million Public Service Credit Union in Romulus, Mich.
VHACU was the third Michigan credit union that was taken over by state regulators this year.
In August, regulators placed into conservatorship the financially troubled $24.8 million Valley State Credit Union in Saginaw. In November, the state regulator appointed the NCUA at the conservator for Valley State CU.
In January, state regulators placed the $68 million Clarkston Brandon Community Credit Union into conservatorship after its former CFO Michael Anthony LaJoice admitted to embezzling more than $18 million, from the Clarkston, Mich.-based cooperative.
The credit union was merged in March into the $3.2 billion Michigan State University Federal Credit Union in East Lansing. LaJoice, who pled guilty to bank fraud in November in Detroit’s U.S. District Court, is scheduled to be sentenced in March.
