David L. Thieme thought himself a generous man who used the powers he held as CEO of General Credit Union for good, helping to keep customers out of bankruptcy and offering financial services to friends in need. To prosecutors, Thieme was a con man who stole from the company he ran and the customers he befriended for personal gain.

Regardless, Thieme is now a convicted defrauder of a financial institution who will serve two years in a state prison for the Class C felony, then two years on probation. Allen Superior Judge Fran Gull ordered the sentence Friday at Thieme's sentencing hearing. Thieme, 50, of Huntertown, pleaded guilty in September.

Thieme also must repay more than $1.57 million in restitution he took from the credit union he ran as CEO from 2004 until he was fired in April 2008. Thieme repaid $982,000 to GCU within a week of his dismissal. As head of GCU, Thieme made more than 6,000 unauthorized loan transactions that took from the riches of the bank to, he says, give to the needy “down on their luck.”

To the Allen County Prosecutor's Office, however, Thieme was no real-life Robin Hood. Prosecuting attorney Tim McCaulay called Thieme a Bernie Madoff-type who stole millions from those in need, and the new CEO at GCU, Lori Huglin-Curry, said Thieme took personal benefits from his fraudulent activities.

“He did not do this to help them,” Huglin-Curry said during testimony Friday. “He did this to help himself. He's a con artist who manipulated everybody into believing he's a good person.”

Credit union officials told police during the investigation that Thieme repeatedly misused or misapplied credit union funds for improper purposes. They said he approved numerous undocumented loans that violated GCU policies and, in several instances, Indiana law, resulting in losses to GCU from underperforming or nonperforming loans of nearly $2.5 million.

Thieme's actions included masking loan delinquencies by improperly using credit union general-ledger funds to make payments on them, pulling the trigger on numerous undocumented, interaccount transfers, or “loans” involving unrelated parties or trusts for which he served as trustee, and approving various account maintenance transactions, such as modifying obligation dates or delaying payment dates, to avoid loan review.

Thieme also overpaid a member for contracted janitorial services and used the excess payments to reduce the member's loan balance.

Thieme's elaborate mass of fraudulent transactions was discovered by Huglin-Curry in April 2008, while performing a routine audit of credit union transactions. When she came across Thieme's complex transactions with hundreds of thousands of dollars of losses attached, Huglin-Curry told Gull she was amazed. “At that time I couldn't believe what I was seeing.”

GCU called in a private accountant to sift through the transactions to determine what the scope really was. What CPA Tim Lewis found over his eight-month investigation was what one GCU official called “devastating.”

Gull agreed.

“You were in a tremendous position of authority and in control of the books of GCU,” Gull said before sentencing. “What you did does not fit what you represented yourself to people.”

Gull offered as mitigating factors Thieme's lack of criminal history and his plea of guilty and acceptance of responsibility, but those were balanced by the nature of the crimes and the violation of trust that Thieme earned from those he defrauded, Gull said. She wondered aloud how deep the defrauding ran, and if Thieme wasn't helping others for his own benefit as he claimed, how he had the bankroll to pay back nearly $1 million after the allegations surfaced. Huglin-Curry said after the proceedings that justice had been served.

“We do feel justified. I feel like this sends a good message to the community.” Huglin-Curry said GCU is in fine financial standing.

Thieme, hired in 1988 and named CEO in 2004, was fired April 14, 2008. Per Gull's sentence, Thieme cannot hold a trustee position or provide such services while on probation. Thieme indicated he will not appeal the sentence.

GCU has more than 9,000 members and four city branches, with assets in excess of $82 million, the credit union reported.