Local News in Brief : 2 Sisters Plead Guilty to Embezzling $898,000

Two San Fernando Valley sisters pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling $898,000 from First Interstate Bank before fleeing to the Philippines, authorities said.

Marissa Puno, 31, of Lake View Terrace pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement and Edna Pantig, 33, of Van Nuys pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting in the scheme, Assistant U.S. Atty. Maurice A. Leiter said. The pleas were entered in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The Philippine-born woman, who are naturalized U.S. citizens, are scheduled for sentencing Jan. 9 by U.S. District Judge Pamela Rymer. Leiter said the women face up to 20 years in federal prison.

Puno began the scheme in 1985 when she was a supervisor of wire transfers of money at First Interstate Bank’s downtown headquarters. She obtained an unauthorized transfer of $1,014,000 from a bank in New York and during the next year transferred $898,000 of the money to a bank account under her sister’s name, authorities said.

Pantig then transferred $600,000 of the money to banks outside the United States, and the sisters fled to the Philippines late in 1986 before the embezzlement was discovered, Leiter said. They were arrested Aug. 12, 1988, by the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation and returned to the United States to stand trial.

So far, none of the $600,000 transferred out of the country has been found, but the sisters agreed Monday to cooperate with investigators working to recover portions of it, Leiter said. Authorities have retrieved most of the other $414,000 originally transferred by Puno.