Ex-Official of S&L; Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement
A former vice president of Centennial Savings & Loan in Santa Rosa, Calif., pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling $1.8 million from the Sonoma County institution over an 18-month period.
Beverly Haines, 53, of Guerneville, admitted charges of embezzlement and falsifying bank records, each carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Under an agreement with the prosecution, she also must return all the money she stole and cooperate in a wide-ranging federal investigation of Centennial and several other insolvent Northern California lending institutions. Sentencing is scheduled Jan. 6.
According to the prosecutor in the case, Assistant U.S. Atty. Peter Robinson, a second defendant, Raleigh Yasinitsky, 29, former manager of Centennial’s main Santa Rosa branch, has agreed to plead guilty Oct. 20 to a single charge of falsifying bank records.
Robinson told reporters that Haines has named others allegedly involved in wrongdoing and that he expects more arrests.
Haines lost her job in August, 1985, when the institution was declared insolvent and taken over by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.
Prosecutors said Haines approved fictitious withdrawals of money from Centennial and transferred the funds to multiple accounts she kept at Bank of America.
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