LOS ANGELES–A former credit union employee who used her job to open bogus lines of credit for her online boyfriend is on trial here, with the defense arguing she was groomed by a con man who played on her emotions.
Indira Mohabir, 42, is on trial in Los Angeles federal court facing 15 felony counts, including conspiracy, fraud and unauthorized issuance of credit union obligations. The status of the case against her alleged accomplice, Phillip Cook, 51, who lived out of state at the time, is not known, reported the Whittier Daily News.
“She did this because she and Phillip Cook were involved in an online relationship,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty said in his opening statement, the Daily News reported. “Cook, in turn, continually expressed his love for her.”
Mohabir was working as a business loan processor at the former Western Federal Credit Union, not Unify Credit Union, in Hawthorne, Calif., when she met Cook in November 2014 through a hotline the credit union established for its business customers, according to prosecutors.
Romantic Getaways
In exchange for opening about $3 million in credit lines and hiding them from her employer, Cook promised to take Mohabir on romantic getaways, and sent her a $50,000 check and flowers, prosecutors allege in court documents. “Although Mohabir and Cook had not yet met in person during the time of the alleged scheme from late 2014 to early 2015, the idea of marriage was floated in texts, according to the government,” the Whittier Daily News said.
However, defense attorney Cuauhtemoc Ortega countered that Mohabir had no intent to defraud Western Federal, and instead was conned by Ortega as part of an online relationship that heated up “almost immediately” after Cook called the CU’s hotline.
Edgar Sandoval, a fraud investigator with the UNIFY Financial Credit Union told the court that almost immediately, Mohabir began helping Cook open what would be nearly 30 credit lines, including more than a dozen platinum business Visa cards, according to the Whittier Daily News.
If convicted, Mohabir would face up to five years in federal prison on the conspiracy count and up to 30 years for each of the substantive fraud charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.