NEW HAVEN, Conn.–Pamela Mallory, a former CU lending manager at 360 FCU CU who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $840,000, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison.
Mallory blamed her crime on severe abuse and financial demands by her ex-husband, but a federal judge only partially accepted her explanation, the Journal Inquirer reported.
Mallory “had been raped, beaten, had her head pushed through walls, was thrown into the fireplace, body-slammed to the floor, threatened with an ax, and threatened with a gun, all by her husband,” defense lawyer Robert B. Muchinsky wrote in his sentencing memorandum, the newspaper reported.
Creditors were “hounding” her then-husband, Jonathan Mallory, over some $150,000 in debts according to Muchinsky, who said that his response was “to break furniture and beat Pamela Mallory.”
The defense lawyer quoted the couple’s daughter, Stephanie, as saying that “when her mother tried to come to her father over their financial issues, he would scream at her that she needed to make it go away,” the Inquirer reported.
“His rage and violence made her fear for the lives of her children and herself,” the defense lawyer continued, saying Pamela Mallory embezzled the money from her employer, the 360 Federal Credit Union, to appease her husband.
The Inquirer stated that prosecutor John T. Pierpont Jr. said he did not doubt the abuse claims, but added that they don’t fully explain the embezzlement, which he said “outlasted her marriage by more than three years.”
Judge Robert M. Chatigny stated that he was not “adopting the allegations against Mr. Mallory.” But he said he was willing to assume that, when Pamela Mallory started the embezzlement in July 2009, she felt she was acting under coercion, didn’t have “predatory intent,” and intended to repay the money, the Inquirer reported.
Chatigny added, however, that she must have realized at some point that she couldn’t repay it. By the time she divorced Jonathan Mallory in early 2012, Pamela Mallory owed about $400,000 and was making an annual salary in the range of $70,000 to $80,000, the judge said.
He called her continuation of the embezzlement in the 3.5 years after the divorce, with no attempt at repayment, “predatory,” the newspaper said.
According to court documents and statements made in court, while employee at the Windsor Locks, Conn.-based 360 Mallory used her access to loan files and authorized loans, including home equity lines of credit to open five different HELOCs in the name of a credit union member and increased the credit limit of those HELOCs on at least 15 occasions, all without the knowledge or consent of the credit union member. The crimes took place between from 2009 through 2016, authorities said.
Initially, authorities said Mallory perpetrated the scheme by opening subsequent HELOCs to pay off earlier, smaller HELOCs. Later in the scheme, rather than opening new HELOCs, she simply increased the credit limits on two of the fraudulent HELOCs to support her spending, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The 21-month prison sentence the judge imposed was below the range of 33 to 41 months recommended by federal sentencing guidelines. But he also imposed the maximum five-year period of “supervised release” and ordered her to repay $100 per month during that period, the Inquirer noted.