A Worcester couple convicted of staging a robbery of a credit union where the wife worked will be resentenced on lesser charges, the state’s highest court decided last month.

Reversing a lower court’s judgment, the state’s Appeals Court concluded in 2012 that George Labadie and Susan Carcieri could not be guilty of the charge of embezzling from a bank – because a federal-chartered credit union is not a bank. The Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decision will send the couple back to Worcester Superior Court to be resentenced on the charge of larceny by embezzlement.

The story begins on the morning of Aug. 27, 2002, when Carcieri dialed 911 to report a robbery at Wyman Gordon Federal Credit Union, where she worked as an assistant branch manager.

A still loosely-bound Carcieri let an investigating police sergeant into the credit union. She told police that a man had approached her from behind and forced her to open the safe while she was opening up the credit union that morning. She didn’t see him and couldn’t describe him, except to say her assailant seemed tall, had a deep voice and had been wearing black boots.

Carcieri, who police noted was wearing a lot of jewelry and didn’t seem upset or injured, told cops the intruder left about an hour before their arrival and that she’d been able to free her right arm from the binding on the chair right after the thief fled. Coincidentally, the credit union had received a particularly large cash delivery the day before, in anticipation of the long holiday weekend and customers coming in with end-of-month paychecks. There was more than $210,000 in the credit union’s safe when Carcieri told police they’d been robbed.

Already, investigators were suspicious of the story, and it probably didn’t help matters much that police saw Carcieri’s husband, George Labadie, talking on his cell phone and pacing about on his front lawn, across the street from the credit union. Curiously, he didn’t cross the street to talk to police or check on his wife.

Cash In The Home

Suspicions solidified two days later when police executed a search warrant on the couple’s home. Investigating officers found more than $20,000 in cash, much of it bundled and new. Many of the bills bore consecutive serial numbers.

Investigators searching the couple’s home seized a computer, color scanner and color printer, which wouldn’t have been so unusual or suspicious if the computer hadn’t contained scans of $10, $20 and $50 bills, along with an Internet search history full of queries about how to counterfeit money. Authorities tacked on a counterfeiting charge, too.

Further investigation revealed the couple had been struggling with financial difficulties prior to the robbery. They owed more than $43,000 to the Lottery Commission, carried $115,000 of debt related to a gas station they owned and maintained slim balances in their own bank accounts.

Labadie used much of the cash to purchase a large amount of money orders that he then paid to the Lottery Commission, as well as a doughnut-making machine for his gas station.

In 2010, both were found guilty of embezzling from a bank and ordered to make full restitution of $210,000. Labadie was also found guilty of attempted possession of counterfeiting notes and possession of counterfeiting tools.

In 2011, Labadie and Carcieri appealed, and a year later, the Appeals Court vacated the charge of embezzlement of a bank. The reasoning? A federal credit union is not a “bank,” according to state law, and state courts do not have jurisdiction over embezzlement from a federal credit union.

Last month, however, the Supreme Judicial Court concluded that larceny by embezzlement was a “lesser included offense” and that the state did have jurisdiction to prosecute the couple on that charge.

“Because the jury’s verdicts demonstrate that they found the defendants guilty of all the required elements of larceny by embezzlement, we remand for entry of convictions of this lesser included offense and for resentencing,” the SJC wrote in its opinion.

Carcieri returns to Worcester Superior Court on March 25. Labadie has not yet been scheduled for a resentencing.

Email: lalix@thewarrengroup.com