Former credit union teller sentenced to 3 years for embezzling nearly $1.5 million

SIOUX CITY — A Denison woman, who embezzled nearly $1.5 million from the Consumer Credit Union, was sentenced Friday to three years in federal prison.

Brenda Jensen, 53, previously pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to credit union embezzlement.

The embezzlement caused the credit union in Denison to become insolvent, forcing its merger with the SAC Federal Credit Union.

In a plea agreement, Jensen admitted she embezzled the money while working as the credit union’s head teller from May 2012 to March 2018.

Jensen and at least one other employee — Jensen’s sister, Janine Keim — embezzled nearly $1.5 million during those dates, according to court documents.

Keim, 68, of Denison, was the credit union’s CEO and pleaded guilty in May to falsifying financial records to hide the embezzlement. She will be sentenced after a presentence report is completed.

The credit union had clients in Crawford, Carroll, Shelby, Ida, Monona, Sac and Harrison counties in west-central Iowa.

Court documents state Jensen successfully concealed her crime from auditors and her employer for years by overstating the credit union’s general ledger balance and creating fictitious deposits to her personal accounts. This resulted in $922,480 in losses.

After years of embezzling, the employees developed an internal kiting scheme — using the float time until checks cleared to make it seem there was more money in a checking account than there actually was.

The scheme caused an additional $539,000 in losses.

Consumer Credit assets decreased by more than a million dollars, a direct result of Jensen’s criminal activity, prosecutors said.

Former board members from the credit union submitted victim impact statements to U.S. District Chief Judge Leonard Strand to show the harm Jensen’s crime had caused the community of 8,000 people.

For some, the credit union was the only institution willing to extend emergency credit. A former board member recalled a single parent with three children who could not get an emergency loan elsewhere but who was helped by the credit union, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Strand sentenced Jensen to 36 months in prison and ordered her to pay more than $1.4 million in restitution. She also must serve two years of supervised release after prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Timmons and investigated by the FBI.

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