Credit Union Embezzler Pleads Guilty
A 41-year-old man pleaded guilty Friday to three federal charges and agreed to pay restitution for embezzling about $1.1 million from an Iowa credit union in 1983.
“I’m glad to have one more step out of the way. I think it was fair,” Steven Hadley, 41, said as he left the federal courthouse.
Hadley pleaded guilty to two counts of interstate transportation of stolen goods out of Iowa and making a false statement on an application for a passport in Texas, where he hid for four years after fleeing Iowa and assuming the name of Richard Finley.
U.S. District Judge Edward McManus ordered a pre-sentencing investigation.
Hadley fled five years ago after walking out of the John Deere Credit Union in Waterloo, Iowa, where he was manager, with $1,136,000 in two cardboard boxes.
Hadley, who was being held in the Linn County Jail, faces up to 25 years in prison, if the judge orders the three terms served consecutively, and fines totaling up to $350,000. He agreed also to turn over his assets to the federal government.
The prosecution agreed not to charge Hadley with failing to pay taxes and dropped four of seven criminal charges originally filed after his April 25 arrest in Friendswood, Tex., a suburb of Houston.
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