Former Credit Union CEO Sentenced for Embezzlement Scheme

…fraudulently credited payments to her own and family members’ loans and deposit accounts.

–

Sitting in her office with blood running down her arms and the boxcutter she’d used to slit her wrists with at her feet, after more than 14 years she’d been caught. She didn’t look at it as giving the credit union’s money away, but the auditors saw otherwise. Now 70-years-old, she looks at spending most or all of the rest of her life behind bars.

Rita Hartman was the former CEO of the $6.5 million Muddy River Credit Union (MRCU) in Atchison, Kansas. State Examiners had requested to come an examination in 2019, but she could only defer them until 2021. When they did finally arrive, the FBI was soon to follow.

Cornered, Hartman called her daughter from her credit union office and told her that “I just tried to kill myself.”  Rushing to the credit union, her daughter found her mother with blood running down her arms, soaking her skirt and pooling on the floor where she had dropped the box cutter she’d cut herself with.

Hartman soon after received medical treatment and was admitted to a hospital for about a week before being released on antidepressants.

But for Hartman, things were not always so dire. In 2013, the then-Governor of the State of Kansas appointed Hartman to the Kansas Credit Union Council, which advises the Kansas Department of Credit Unions on issues and needs of credit unions. Hartman is also a former mayor and city commissioner in Atchison. But all of that came crashing down with the Examiners findings.

Discovered was fourteen years and $346,000 in stolen member cash deposits and another $430,000 of fraudulently credited payments to her own and family members’ loans and deposit accounts. This depletion of MRCU’s capital and made it insolvent and ultimately forced them into merging into the $206 million asset Frontier Federal Credit Union in Leavenworth.

Later, when the FBI interviewed Hartman 2023, Hartman defended her actions, saying: “I didn’t look at it as giving the credit union’s money away. I looked at it as helping somebody, and I was always gonna figure out a way to get that money back.”

On February 4, 2025, Hartman plead pleaded guilty to making false entries in federal credit union records. On November 6^th, a Federal Judge handed down her sentence of 63 months in prison and $778,361 in restitution, with all of Hartman’s state pension payments be directed towards.

“For decades, Rita Hartman was a prominent, well-respected figure in Atchison, Kansas,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser. “Instead of living up to the high regard that people in the community had for her, she exploited their trust and used it to perpetuate her embezzlement scheme and line her pockets with stolen funds.” 

Source: US Dept of Justice and CU Times

Former Credit Union CEO Sentenced for Embezzlement Scheme – Former Credit Union CEO Sentenced for Embezzlement Scheme – Former Credit Union CEO Sentenced for Embezzlement Scheme

Former Credit Union CEO Sentenced for Embezzlement Scheme – Police – Police – Arrest – Arrest – Credit Union Collections – Credit Union Collectors – Lending – Fraud