Our Community Power Blog

Now here is great story for you all to read. Are you aware of the stupendous theft that has occurred at the Obelisk federal Credit Union located in Albany? No? Then here are some astonishing details of the same.

For almost four years Patricia Helen Sherman had been piling bills of $100 while walking out of her office where she held the position of the Head Teller. Over these years $7 million has been procured form the credit union and spent in gambling at the Ohio River casinos. She is now facing lifetime imprisonment.

The overtly shocking fact is that the feedback received from people and colleagues known to her were all positive. She was a very nice person and perfectly professional it seems.

It was only recently that the theft was recognized, that too after a confession made by the thief herself. Obelisk incurred a loss of $5 million that they had to write off as expense. Nothing much could be recovered from her because the money had been spent over the years. As a head teller she used to order and refill the vaults. She was in charge of the vault activities. This made it easy to hide the wrong doings from the supervisory committee. She submitted altered ledger balances to keep up with the supervision.

Such a grand crime committed by an insider, happened under our nose of the authority and all we found out from people was that the lady was very nice and professional. Employing deceitful people can incur such amount of loss; this is a lesson to learn from.