Priority One Credit Union's President, Charles R. Wiggington, Sr., has spent the last two-years expending tremendous energy, time and credit union monies creating charades and ruses used in the termination of employees he believes are part of an underground network of rebel leaders and their confederates. For President Wiggington, gathering actual evidence needed to implicate employees in wrong doing is too laborious a process so with the help of Senior Vice President, Rodger Smock, and Board Chairperson, Diedra Harris-Brooks, the always malicious President prefers creating evidence and disparaging rumors that taint an employee's reputation. The President seems adhere to the adage that rules are made to be broken.
The following, rather complicated account, involves two employees, one an employee of Priority One and the other, an employee of Associated Management Company (Associated Management), the former collection agency who the credit union contracted for several years until the President's recent termination of their services.
The incident, which we describe below, occurred in 2008 and was brought to our attention by employees of the credit union and of Associated Management Company. The account describes a plot, forged by President Wiggington, in which he tried to implicate three employees of wrong doing. His accusations were unsubstantiated by evidence- tangible or circumstantial.
At the start of 2008, President Wiggington began complaining that Associated Management was not recuperating sufficient monies from their collection efforts to justify the monthly charges for their services. He also revealed that he believed the agency was not turning over all monies collected from delinquent accounts. He explained that he had decided to create an in-house collection department. By doing so, he would eliminate the money spent on the services of an outside contractor and surmised that in-house collectors would be more motivated to collect delinquent monies than would be an outside agency.
In June 2008, he asked AVP of Lending, Patricia Loiacano, to meet with Mike Lee, the owner of Associated Management, and hand him a letter that Rodger Smock composed and the President signed, informing him that Priority One would not be renewing its agreement with the agency.
SCRUTINIZING ASSOCIATED MANAGEMENT
The President would later add that he had learned that Associated Management did not perform in depth background checks of its employees. He pointed out that the agency did not finger print newly hired staff. We can't explain why President Wiggington suddenly became concerned with the credit union's security and why he began questioning the integrity of the collection agent.
While Charles R. Wiggington, Sr. served as Vice President of Operations, he with the help of Mike Lee, the owner of Associated Management, committed collusion when the two repossessed an automobile from a member who had signed a repayment agreement so that he could become current with his automobile loan payments.
At the time, member Danny Wafa, became delinquent with his automobile loan payments due to illness in his family. The illness forced him to frequently travel out of state to care for this relative. At the time, the supervisor of the collections department visited Mr. Wafa at his home to draw up a repayment plan that would help Mr. Wafa become current with loan payments and avoid having his automobile from being repossessed. The member signed the tentative agreement and his supervisor returned to the South Pasadena branch to obtain the approval of his supervisor, Mike Lee.
While reviewing the agreement, Mr. Lee noticed that Mr. Wafa's car was a BMW- Charles R. Wiggington, Sr. vehicle of choice. Mr. Lee visited Mr. Wiggington in his office, informed him about the repayment agreement and because the car was a BMW, asked if he wanted the agreement approved or if he would prefer having the vehicle repossessed. Mr. Wiggington ordered that the agreement not be approved and the vehicle confiscated.
Both Mr. Lee and Mr. Wiggington drew up documents to create the appearance that the automobile had been sent to auction to be sold. But the vehicle was never physically sent to auction. The automobile was picked up and delivered to Mr. Wiggington and ownership transferred to his name. The proof that the vehicle was never sent to auction lies in the fact that when a vehicle is repossessed and afterwards, sold, any money obtained from the sale is applied to the outstanding (unpaid) balance. In the case of Mr. Wafa's unpaid loan balance remained unchanged and there is no record of money being applied to the unpaid amount after the date the automobile was repossessed.
Another incident that Charles R. Wiggington, Sr. was aware of is that Mr. Lee repossessed a pick-up truck from one of the credit union's members and afterwards, transferred ownership to his daughter. His daughter's loan file containing records of the repossessed truck remain in South Pasadena.
In 2008, Mr. Lee repossessed a beautiful Mercedes Benz and afterwards, offered the automobile to Clayton, one of his employees, before sending the vehicle off to auction.
Two days later, Arial, an employee in the IT Department learned about the repossessed vehicle and informed Frank, a partner of Mr. Lee, that he would like to purchase the Mercedez Benz, but would have to first the automobile which was being stored at an impound yard. Frank informed Arial that the impound yard doesn't allow inspections. Arial continued to insist he must inspect the automobile before he could agree to buy it.
In the meantime, Mr. Lee sold the vehicle for $5000 to one of Clayton's friends. When Arial discovered the automobile had been sold he became incensed and lodged a complaint with Frank. An agitated Mr. Lee immediately contacted Clayton and angrily told him he would never offer another employee of his company the opportunity to purchase a repossessed automobile.
Mr. Lee's uncontrolled emotional reaction which tried to blame Clayton was an absurd and irrational reaction to the blunder he alone committed when he chose to offer the vehicle to one of his staff. This was actually an honest transaction unlike the repossession of Mr. Wafa's automobile or repossession of the truck whose ownership he transferred to his daughter.
Clayton reminded Mr. Lee that it was he, who offered the Mercedes Benz which was scheduled to be sent to auction. What's more, Mr. Lee sold the vehicle to Clayton's friend. In the meantime, Ariel visited President Wiggington in his office and complained that he had been duped out of purchasing the automobile. The hypocritical President who years earlier took possession of Mr. Wafa's car, became incensed and took Arial's side.
President Wiggington called Frank and concocted a story, accusing the loan collector of funding fraudulent loans. The President's story was absurd and completely untrue because Clayton had no experience or rights to fund loans and was unfamiliar of the procedures to do so. But President Wiggington's story was about to become even more preposterous. He told Frank that Clayton seemed, in his opinion, to live far above his means.
It's nothing less than amazing, that Charles R. Wiggington, Sr., the man who told the Board he had no idea his hand-picked AVP, Liz Campos, had been kiting and who was found guilty of sexual harassment and who took possession of a member's automobile while defrauding the credit union of money that would have been obtained from the sale of the car, was now accusing others of stealing? And how did the President know that Clayton lived above his means when he had no personal access to Clayton's payroll records? Clayton after all, was not an employee of the credit union.
The President's story became even more outlandish as he told Frank that Clayton was being aided by the Assistant Branch Manager in Los Angeles and former Real Estate Loan Officer once assigned to South Pasadena and also the same woman the President sexually harassed for a number of years.
The President also dragged Anwar, a temporary employment of the credit union assigned to the Van Nuys branch, into his absurd story and accused Anwar of aiding Clayton and the former Real Estate Loan Officer.
The President concocted an amazing story; a fantastical conspiracy in which he targeted employees he was jealous of. It was no secret that he was jealous of Clayton and Anwar because of the attention they drew from women. It was also logistically impossible for the three employees to physically perpetrate loan fraud. Clayton was assigned to the collections department located in South Pasadena. The Real Estate Loan Officer had been working out of the Los Angeles branch on the corner of Central and Florence Avenues in South Centrol Los Angeles while Anwar was assigned to the Van Nuys branch.
The five bad loans funded by the Van Nuys branch had all been reviewed and approved by Assistant Branch Manager, Neelam Verma. After approving these, she ordered Anwar to fund them, however, Anwar had absolutely nothing to do with approving them.
The President's story was nothing more than another of his emotionally-driven ruses designed to slander employee reputations but his plot failed and attests to what an incompetent conniver he really is.
After leveling his accusations against Clayton, the Real Estate Loan Officer, and Anwar, Frank called Mike Lee. The owner of Associated Management never demanded evidence needed to solidify the President's wild accusations and instead, called Clayton and informed him that he was suspected of conspiring to process fraudulent loans. Clayton not only denied having been involved in any such activity but he told Mr. Lee that it was impossible for him to do so since he did not possess the knowledge needed to fund loans nor did he have the security clearance to do so.
We also believe that the President targeted the former Real Estate Loan Officer because she never responded to his sexualized commentaries made to her while she was assigned to the South Pasadena branch.
A few weeks later, the President terminated Anwar for funding 5 bad loans when he should have instead terminated the Van Nuys Assistant Branch Manager, Neelam Varma.
A few months later, he terminated the former Real Estate Loan Officer, allegedly for writing a bad check. In 2007, he was incensed because his hand-picked AVP, Liz Campos, was terminating for kiting and sustaining more than 24 NSF incidents on her Priority One checking account but he somehow felt justified to terminate the former Loan Officer for a single bounced check.
President Wiggington is a man whose moral compass lies shattered on the floor. His proclivities are character assassination and harassment. As business declines, his focus is concocting scathing plots that victimize people who in his mind, jar his twisted sensibilities. Underneath his cracked veneer is a confused little boy who is quite incapable of discerning right from wrong and who lacks the self-discipline to bring his behaviors and verbalizations into check.
"It is better to encounter a mother bear whose cubs have been taken than keep company with a fool."
King Solomon
