Former CEO Gary Ellis Imprisoned for Credit Union Embezzlement

The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont announced that Gary Ellis, 57, of Newmarket, NH, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Burlington to six months of imprisonment following his guilty plea to a charge that he embezzled money from the River Valley Credit Union, a federally insured credit union. Chief U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III also ordered that Ellis serve five years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term. As conditions of supervised release, Ellis must serve an additional four months of home confinement and pay restitution of between $120,000 and $200,000. The exact amount of restitution will be determined following another hearing. Judge Sessions ordered that Ellis surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on April 28 to begin serving his sentence.

On December 3, 2008, a federal grand jury in Rutland returned a one-count indictment charging Ellis with misappropriating money from his former employer, the River Valley Credit Union of Brattleboro. Until the spring of 2005, Ellis was the Chief Executive Officer of the credit union. The indictment accused Ellis of taking extra salary, bonus and other payments over a period beginning in about January 2001 and continuing through early 2005. Ellis was fired in the spring of 2005.

This case was investigated by the Rutland office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Ellis is represented by Federal Public Defender Elizabeth Mann. The prosecutor is Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples.