MADISON HEIGHTS, Va.–A 90-year-old woman here who filed suit against NCUA to recover her life savings after the agency liquidated a credit union has settled for an undisclosed amount of money.
As CUToday.info reported here, Ruby Van Scoten had filed the lawsuit to recover $227,574 that was on deposit at Lynrocten Federal Credit Union in Lynchburg, Va. That credit union collapsed due to internal fraud, with members of its management team now doing prison time following convictions.
According to the News & Advance, Van Scoten has signed a confidentiality agreement with the NCUA that bars disclosure of settlement details. She did tell the publication, however, that she is pleased to have the almost four-year struggle to recoup her losses over.
“It feels good to know that I won’t lose my home,” Van Scoten told the News & Advance. “I was afraid I would lose my home because I didn’t have money to pay the lawyer if they hadn’t have come through with a little something to pay him.”
Van Scoten was represented by attorneys Ray Ferris and Erin Ashwell of Roanoke firms Ferris & Eakin and Woods Rogers, respectively.
Days after the closure of the credit union, she filed an insurance claim for her account balance with the NCUA.
As CUToday.info reported, Van Scoten originally opened her account in 2002 at a time when LFCU was managed by Linda Sue Newcomb, who was married to Van Scoten’s nephew, Arthur Newcomb. Linda Sue Newcomb, along with teller Teresa Humphries, were both convicted of embezzlement and other crimes. Linda Sue Newcomb was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison; Humphries to more than three years. Arthur Newcomb has not been charged.
The suit had alleged that Van Scoten permitted Arthur Newcomb to make several withdrawals and redeposits as part of 0% loans between 2005-11, and that he further granted him right-to-survivorship to her account in 2009. But in her complaint Van Scoten said it was not her desire to name him joint owner on the account, even though such a change was made.
“[The NCUA] is trying to steal her money,” Arthur Newcomb was quoted by the News & Advance as saying. “It wasn’t my money in that account.”
Van Scoten, who was among more than 1,000 other members of the credit union who lost money after it shut down following a fraud scheme that drained $12 million in assets from the now-defunct CU, told the News & Advance she has since deposited the funds into a bank account that has only her name on it.