Credit union’s manager gets prison for $2M embezzlement

Sharon Broadway, 62, will serve at least 45 months in prison for embezzlement.

MONROE — A Toledo woman who pleaded guilty to em­bez­zling more than $2 mil­lion from a now-shut­tered Tem­per­ance credit union was sen­tenced Thurs­day to at least 45 months in prison.

Sharon Broad­way, 62, pleaded guilty in Decem­ber to fel­ony counts of rack­e­teer­ing and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion em­bez­zle­ment from Mon­roe County’s United Cath­o­lic Credit Union, which closed in Au­gust af­ter state reg­u­la­tors dis­cov­ered it was in­sol­vent.

Judge Mi­chael Weipert of Mon­roe County’s 38th Cir­cuit Court sen­tenced Broad­way to 10 to 240 months on the em­bez­zle­ment charge and a con­cur­rent 45 months to 240 months on the other charge. She also was or­dered to pay $2,598,000 in res­ti­tu­tion and can’t work in the fi­nan­cial in­dus­try, said Joy Year­out, a spokes­man for the Mich­i­gan At­tor­ney Gen­eral.

Broad­way’s at­tor­ney, Lorin Zaner, said, “She’s very apol­o­getic for what hap­pened and how she’s let so many peo­ple down.”

The state’s Of­fice of Finan­cial and In­sur­ance Reg­u­la­tion shut down the credit union, which counted more than 200 mem­bers who be­longed to area Cath­o­lic par­ishes. Broad­way was de­scribed by the At­tor­ney Gen­eral of­fice as the credit union’s “man­ager, sec­re­tary, board mem­ber, and sole em­ployee.”

Of­fi­cials said she hid her ac­tions for nearly 30 years us­ing a scheme that in­cluded no record of cer­tif­i­cates of de­posit on credit union books.

Mr. Zaner said it’s un­likely his cli­ent will be able to make full res­ti­tu­tion. He said Broad­way had found an­other job but not yet started the po­si­tion. She was taken im­me­di­ately into cus­tody af­ter sen­tenc­ing.

Broad­way spent some of the money on oth­ers, he said. “There re­ally is noth­ing to show for it. She didn’t live an ex­trav­a­gant life,” Mr. Zaner said.

Credit union mem­bers did not lose money be­cause the funds were fed­er­ally in­sured by the Na­tional Credit Union Ad­min­is­tra­tion, said John Kol­hoff, dep­uty com­mis­sioner of the Of­fice of Finan­cial and In­sur­ance Reg­u­la­tion credit union di­vi­sion. Any res­ti­tu­tion will re­turn to the Na­tional Credit Union Ad­min­is­tra­tion to cover its losses, he said.

“We’ve taken not only the crim­i­nal ac­tions but reg­u­la­tory ac­tions,” Mr. Kol­hoff said.

State of­fi­cials said the em­bez­zle­ment was found dur­ing a rou­tine ex­ami­na­tion by reg­u­la­tors. Broad­way was charged in No­vem­ber.

Con­tact Va­nessa McCray at:vmc­cray@the­blade.comor 419-724-6065.