CAUGHT FOR STEALING PAYDAY LOANS

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January 5th, 2012

Woman who headed Dwelling House scandal gets 12 1/2 years

This 44 year old woman, Elexa Manos-Becton, has spent her adult life stealing and getting token punishments. Today, finally, the woman who found an accounting glitch and terminally undermined Dwelling House Savings & Loan was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison for bank fraud and money laundering, and ordered to do what she can to pay back the $2.47 million she and friends siphoned from the venerable Hill District institution.

What she discovered

The Coraopolis woman accidentally discovered that if she took out payday loans and instructed the lenders to take repayment from a Dwelling House account that did not have sufficient funds, she was never charged for the withdrawal. So she settled down and repeated the exercise about 200 times. She also shared the discovery with at least two friends who she met in jail, plus her son, all of whom have pleaded guilty.

Apologies

"I’d like to publicly apologize to the Lavelles, the Hill District family that owned Dwelling House, the employees and the customers," Ms. Manos-Becton said. "It was not my intention to put the bank out of business. "

Sentence

Her attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Jay J. Finkelstein, said she should get a 92-month sentence in light of her psychiatric disorders, drug and alcohol problems, troubled childhood and occasional attempts to cooperate with prosecutors. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Hull, though, pointed out that Ms. Manos-Becton has 29 convictions in her past, including 20 for thefts and others for drug, gun and prostitution crimes. During the years when she was bleeding Dwelling House, she spent the money on drugs and "exorbitant living," he said. U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch said her life was "an endless pattern of criminal behavior.

Culmination of a lifetime

"The defendant has received only slaps on the wrist," Judge Bloch said, so she "kept rolling the dice. This crime seems to be the culmination of a lifetime spent stealing." Ms. Manos-Becton’s bond was revoked and she was immediately taken into custody by U.S. marshals. Her son, Dimitri Manos, and friend Veronica Smith are scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, closing out the prosecutions of the four people indicted in Dwelling House’s demise.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 7:43 am and is filed under Business, Economy, Loans, Payday Loans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

CAUGHT FOR STEALING PAYDAY LOANS

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