Richland HAPO teller charged with embezzling $18,420 from 3 customer accounts

A teller with HAPO Community Credit Union is accused of taking $18,420 total from the accounts of three customers without their permission.

Two of the alleged transactions by Gabriela M. Perez were just one minute apart on the same day last December.

In the third transaction, the customer noticed the missing money that night, immediately transferred his remaining funds to another account, and then went into the credit union to report the problem the following morning after Perez called claiming she’d made an error.

Perez, 21, of Richland, pleaded innocent Thursday in Benton County Superior Court to one count of first-degree theft. Her trial is set Oct. 23.

She was working at the Richland branch when she withdrew $8,120 from the joint account of a mother and son at 5 p.m. on Dec. 6, according to court documents.

The account owners were not present in HAPO that day and did not provide a signature for the withdrawal, which also was not processed through a receipt management system as is credit union policy.

On Jan. 17, managers contacted the members, who confirmed both in a phone call and in a written affidavit that they did not authorize the transaction, documents said. HAPO reportedly absorbed the loss.

Court documents show that at 5:01 p.m. on Dec. 6 — one minute after the previous transaction — Perez took $5,000 out of another joint account.

The members reported the missing money on Jan. 12, and signed affidavits saying they did not withdraw the money or receive any parts of it, documents said. HAPO also absorbed this loss.

It was a questionable Dec. 27 transaction that quickly caught the customer’s attention, and came to the light of management the next day.

Perez allegedly took $5,300 from a couple’s checking account at 6:03 p.m. The member discovered the withdrawal at 9:30 p.m. and, assuming it was a debit fraud, went onto the HAPO website to move his money from checking into a savings account.

Perez then called the member at the start of business Dec. 28 to say “she made an error on his account and had posted the correction. She told the victim errors happen all the time,” court documents said.

Perez did not report it to her manager. But the customer hopped in his car and arrived at the Richland branch by 9:35 a.m. to get a new debit card and make sure management was aware of the error.

The man said he was concerned because, as an added layer of security, he’d established a code word for verification before transactions could be performed, documents said.

HAPO management questioned Perez, who said she could not remember what happened because her cash drawer was off by $100. An audit of her till revealed it was short $5,300, court documents said.

Perez further said she didn’t know why she posted the $5,300 withdrawal on Dec. 27, why she believed it was an error or why she redeposited the funds at 9:03 a.m. Dec. 28, documents said.

She is out of custody on her personal recognizance.

This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Richland HAPO teller charged with embezzling $18,420 from 3 customer accounts."