Credit union employee charged with stealing from customers

A Mountain America Credit Union employee has been charged with stealing about $27,250 from customer accounts.

The 25-year-old employee was charged Friday in 3rd District Court with communications fraud and theft, both second-degree felonies.

The credit union first noticed the problem when a withdrawal was disputed at its Glendale branch.

Following an internal audit, the employee admitted to police that he had fraudulently withdrawn money from customer accounts, according to the charges. He would approach a teller and say that he had a customer who wanted money. The employee then spent some of the money and put the rest in his own account, the charges state.

The employee is suspected of taking $27,251.90 from April to August of 2011.

He told police that he also changed the e-mail addresses on member accounts so that they would not receive their electronic statements.

The credit union found the withdrawals were unauthorized after they contacted the 17 account holders with altered e-mails. The credit union refunded the money to the customers.

Michael McFall