CEO of a Louisiana Credit Union Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges, Faces up to 5 Years in Prison

Published December 14, 2021

Louisiana – United States Attorney Brandon B. Brown announced that Helen Godfrey-Smith, 72, of Shreveport, Louisiana, has pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Elizabeth E. Foote to making and using a false document.

Godfrey-Smith worked for the Shreveport Federal Credit Union (SFCU) from 1983 to 2017 and served as the SFCU’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for much of that time. The Shreveport Federal Credit Union (SFCU) was a financial institution based in Shreveport, Louisiana, that was governed by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).

The SFCU, through Godfrey-Smith, reached an arrangement with the US Department of Treasury in October 2016 to buy back some securities that were part of the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). On December 27, 2016, Godfrey-Smith signed and submitted an Officer’s Certificate to the United States Department of the Treasury, certifying that all conditions prior to the closing had been met.

In actuality, SFCU had failed to meet all of the pre-closing conditions and had incurred a material adverse effect as a result. SFCU was in financial trouble, unbeknownst to the US Department of the Treasury and the NCUA. Another individual, who was the Chief Financial Officer of SFCU (Individual 1), falsified call reports to the NCUA from 2015 to 2017, including millions of dollars in false fee income. She was also fabricating entries in the bank’s records to back up the bogus call reports. This gave the impression that SFCU was profitable when the bank was actually collapsing. In addition, Individual 1 defrauded the credit union of around $1.5 million.

Godfrey-Smith had discovered problems at the credit union by the time she signed the Officer’s Statement. She had previously examined and discovered that SFCU’s general ledger had millions of dollars in fake entries, and the credit union’s books were not balanced. However, she failed to tell the US Department of the Treasury of this information and signed the fake Officer’s Statement.

The institution failed in the spring of 2017. The NCUA regulators took control of the bank and placed it under conservatorship. According to an assessment by the NCUA, SFCU had lost more than $10 million by December 2016.

Godfrey-Smith could face a five-year jail sentence, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000. The date for sentencing has been scheduled for April 5, 2022.

The FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Department of Treasury–Office of Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth D. Reeg prosecuted the case.