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us2innj
Citizen
Username: Us2innj
Post Number: 724
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, June 13, 2003 - 3:58 pm: |     |
A sign company was replacing the Valley National Bank sign today, and under it was a rather old sign for "Yorkwood Savings". Anyone know when this bank was in Maplewood? |
snshirsch
Citizen
Username: Snshirsch
Post Number: 58
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, June 13, 2003 - 4:16 pm: | |
Found this article on the net...
1999-03-29 -- Alemezohu, Godfrey -- Sentencing -- News Release Nigerian national, fugitive for more than a decade,sentenced for 1984 $175,000 embezzlement
NEWARK -- A Nigerian national and fugitive for more than a decade was sentenced today five years in prison for embezzling $175,000 in 1984 from a now-defunct Maplewood bank, U.S. Attorney Faith S. Hochberg announced.
Godfrey Uyi Alemezohu, was vice president of lending from June 1983 to November 1984 at Yorkwood Savings and Loan Association (Yorkwood), taken over in 1990 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporaton, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mariellen Dugan.
A 1984 internal audit and subsequent investigation found that Alemezohu issued 10 checks to persons and companies who neither had applied for nor received loans. Alemezohu used the money to pay the mortgage on a Roselle Park residence and to buy a 1984 BMW and a 1984 Dodge Van, according to court documents.
On Nov. 19, 1983, Alemezohu admitted the theft, surrendered his Nigerian passport and agreed to cooperate. Several days later he fled the U.S. and returned to Nigeria, and was charged Nov. 26, 1984, in a Criminal Complaint.
The sale of his residence and vehicles after he fled recovered about $107,000.
In August 1998 Alemezohu returned to the U.S. and was arrested by INS officials at JFK International Airport. He pleaded guilty Nov. 19, 1998, to Count 10 of an Indictment charging him with embezzlement.
Under federal rules in effect at the time, Alemezohu will be eligible for parole after serving about a third of his custodial term. U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry today also ordered Alemezohu to pay $33,000 restitution.
Letters that Alemezohu allegedly wrote in December 1984 to two former co-workers were presented at sentencing. Alemezohu wrote that stealing the money was his way of " ...getting back at a system that is highly unfair." He wrote that in Nigeria not even "Mr. Reagan" would be able to touch him.
Hochberg credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of William C. Megary, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office, with developing the case against Alemezohu.
The Government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dugan of the U.S. Attorney's Criminal Division in Newark. -30- Defense Attorney: Stacey Biancamano, Esq. Newark
U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey
Faith S. Hochberg, United States Attorney
970 Broad Street, Seventh Floor, Newark, New Jersey 07102
Main Office Number: 973-645-2700
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#9Dream
Citizen
Username: 9dream
Post Number: 389
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Friday, June 13, 2003 - 4:40 pm: | |
So THAT'S how all that money ended up in Nigeria! |
scottkisch
Citizen
Username: Scottkisch
Post Number: 56
Registered: 6-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - 1:33 pm: | |
Yorkwood goes back approx. as far as I've been alive ... 37 years give-or-take. My parents opened my first savings account there sometime around 1970. They gave out the very best lollipops!
Perhaps there's something in the historic archives. |
bobk
Supporter
Username: Bobk
Post Number: 3145
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2003 - 8:18 am: | |
I believe that Yorkwood got caught in the savings bank crisis of the early 1980s after Regulation Q(?) was withdrawn. They were involved in some syndicated real estate loans that went bad and were taken over by the FDIC, if my memory serves me correctly. There were no accusations made about the officers and directors, other than bad business judgement. In other words, the senior officers didn't have their hand in the cookie jar. |
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