SCRANTON, Penn.–With the judge calling his crimes “mind boggling,” the former CEO of Valor Credit Union has finally been sentenced to prison after numerous delays and a fraud that led to the demise of the credit union.
Former CEO Sean Jelen, 35, was sentenced to five years, eight months in federal prison for embezzling more than $700,000 from Valor Credit Union. U.S. District Judge Malachy Mannion rejected Jelen’s request for a more lenient sentence, saying Jelen demonstrated a high degree of sophistication in pilfering money from VCU for more than a year.
As CUToday.info has reported, Jelen’s path of deception in committing crimes and ability to delay his sentencing have been difficult to experience for many in credit unions.
In late 2015 Jelen was fired from his role as CEO after he had allegedly been driving a credit union-owned Mercedes Benz S550—valued at more than $100,000—while intoxicated. The car had been provided to Jelen from the CU as a perk.
Following the dismissal, Jelen failed to return the car for several weeks, which led the CU to report the car to police as stolen.
Jelen was charged in June 2016 with to two counts of bank fraud, with prosecutors saying he used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle, including a $20,000 grandfather clock and a $30,000 birthday party for his wife. He was also later charged with creating fictitious credit union board members as part of the scheme, as CUToday.info reported here.
“It’s flabbergasting to me . . . the amount of manipulation and the degree of sophistication and to some extent, the callous nature” of your crimes, Mannion told Jelen during the roughly two-hour hearing, according to CitizensVoice.com.
Jelen addressed the court in remarks of more than 45 minutes, and while he expressed remorse he did not apologize for his crimes.
“I cannot begin to show the intense remorse I have for the good people who worked there,” he told the court. “I did not consider them co-workers. I saw them as friends.”
Those comments drew scoffs from some of the 15 former employees and credit union members who attended the sentence, some of whom shook their heads in disbelief as he spoke, according to media reports.
In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay more than $694,000 in restitution.
Mike Walser, former controller for Valor Credit Union, was quoted as saying, “He hurt a lot of good people,” Walser said. “I just wish the sentence was longer.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Caraballo told CitizensVoice.com that Jelen was a “professional fraudster” and that the thefts were “staggering in their audacity.”
Caraballo noted Jelen continued efforts to defraud the CU after he was fired in August 2015, trying, unsuccessfully, to cash in a life insurance policy.
“He tried to loot the credit union on his way out the door,” Caraballo told CitizensVoice.com. “These are not the acts of a man trying to fix a credit union and treat its employees as family.”
Valor Credit Union was merged into Pentagon FCU in February 2017.