Credit union pursues felony charge

GLENDALE — Civic leader Stephanie Mines has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that she defrauded a local credit union of more than $21,000.

Mines — who served as a Glendale Education Foundation member, president for the Soroptimist International of the Verdugos, the Montrose-Verdugo City Chamber of Commerce and the Sparr Heights Merchants Assn. — is facing one felony count on allegations that she passed bad checks between two banks in order to boost her account balance.

The charge comes less than two months after Mines paid a full $21,323 restitution to the Glendale Area Schools Federal Credit Union, after the bank filed a civil suit against her. Credit union attorneys are still pursuing $2,000 in legal fees.

“It was the position of the credit union to fully prosecute the crime, in spite of the fact that she made restitution because. . . she needs to answer to the crime,” said Stuart Perlitsh, the credit union’s chief executive.

Perlitsh, who has headed the credit union for 13 years, said that this was the first incident of check-kiting that has occurred during his tenure.

Credit union officials became aware of account discrepancies in January, when Citibank representatives contacted them and said they would be returning multiple checks that came to them in progressively larger increments, Perlitsh said.

Mines’ attorney, George Bird, called the criminal charges a result of a “campaign of malice” and said the account discrepancy occurred as a result of faulty record-keeping.

“It’s not like Stephanie Mines woke up one morning and said it was her intention to take money from a financial institution,” he said. “But the fact is that if you are in a business with a family member and you become aware that that family member has failed with accurately accounting for financial transactions — the burden falls on you to pick up the pieces.

Unfortunately, the result of Stephanie Mines picking up the pieces is that she is currently charged in a criminal case.”

Mines’ restitution payment was to correct the discrepancy that resulted from accounting errors, and any additional prosecution is more about a personal vendetta than wrongdoing, he added.

“The real tragedy in this is that there are individuals at the bank that seem to have it out for her,” he said.

Members of the foundations and boards that Mines serves on have maintained that the charges do not affect her standing at this point, because they are still only allegations.

Mines is scheduled for a hearing at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 25 in Burbank Superior Court.