Ex-Vice President of National Penn Bank Charged with embezzlement

Roberta L. Stutzman, the former Vice President of National Penn Bank was charged on February 23rd, 2010 with embezzlement. Mrs. Stutzman is believed to have embezzled over four million four hundred thousand dollars and using the monies to pay off personal debts, purchase property and automobiles.

Mrs. Stutzman was the Vice President of loan operations. She used her position to create credit lines in name of borrowers that did not exist. She transferred the funds via electronic transfer into her personal accounts and members of her family.

United States Attorney Michael Levy stated that the charges against Mrs. Stutzman include one count each on bank fraud, embezzlement by a bank employee and filing a false tax return.

Mrs. Stutzman filed her 2007 however according to attorneys assigned to the case; she did not claim over seven hundred thousand dollars in income on the return.

Catherine Bower, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications for National Penn stated that no customer funds were affected due to Mrs. Stutzman’s embezzlement. She stated that they had received word from the United States Attorney’s Office that an indictment was to be filed on one of our former employee’s on charges of fraud. The charges against the employee stem back to events that were uncovered by National Penn and reported to authorities in December of 2008. National Penn has been working with authorities since December to bring this case to indictment. Irregularities were found in the former employee’s bookkeeping which led the bank to notify the law enforcement.

National Penn filed a civil lawsuit in 2008 against Mrs. Stutzman along with other individuals and Mrs. Stutzman’s employment was terminated. The bank in that case accused Mrs. Stutzman of conspiring with her family to embezzle from the bank.

Prosecutors in the case say that Mrs. Stutzman opened two credit lines using false identities and two lines of credit under her and her husband’s name. She used her position in the bank to access the banks computer system to delete the accrued interest on the all the lines of credit that she created.

Prosecutors are asking that Mrs. Stutzman forfeit all properties purchased, a 2006 Hummer, two BMW sedans, a Cadillac Escalade and two other sport utilities vehicles.