Woman sentenced
in bank fraud caseThe former supervisor is jailed for
her scheme to open fake accounts
A former Schofield Federal Credit Union supervisor was sentenced Friday to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for a "check-kiting" scheme in which she obtained $564,000 over a five-year period.
U.S. District Judge Susan Mollway also sentenced Charlene Renteria, 33, to five years of supervised release and ordered her to pay back $561,550. She had pleaded guilty earlier to bank fraud.
As operations supervisor at the credit union, Renteria was responsible for overseeing tellers and new account clerks. Because of her position, Renteria said she was able to open as many as 36 fictitious accounts beginning in 1998 until September 2002, according to U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo.
Generally, check kiting involves writing a check on an account that has been recently closed or has insufficient funds and depositing it into another account. Before the deposit can be processed, the accountholder withdraws money from the account before the check bounces.
The scheme can be repeated, taking advantage of the time it takes to track checks.