An Orange County woman who used her credit union job to secretly open bogus lines of credit for her online boyfriend, who then siphoned off nearly $1.1 million, faces potentially hundreds of years in federal prison when she is sentenced in April.
Indira Mohabir, 42, was convicted Monday in downtown Los Angeles of conspiracy to commit insider and bank fraud, along with 14 fraud counts. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she faces up to five years in prison on the conspiracy count and up to 30 years for each of the fraud charges.
Sentencing is scheduled for April 5.
Charges are still pending against her online boyfriend and co-defendant, 51-year-old Phillip Cook of Las Vegas.
Mohabir, who worked as a business loan processor at the former Western Federal Credit Union in Hawthorne, met Cook in November 2014 through a hotline the credit union established for its business customers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Paetty told jurors in his opening statement.
In exchange for opening about $3 million in credit lines and hiding them from her employer, Cook promised to take Mohabir on romantic getaways, and sent her a $50,000 check and flowers, prosecutors allege in court documents. Although Mohabir and Cook had not yet met in person during the time of the alleged scheme from late 2014 to early 2015, the idea of marriage was floated in texts, according to the government.
“She did this because she and Phillip Cook were involved in an online relationship,” Paetty said. “Cook, in turn, continually expressed his love for her.”
Defense attorney Cuauhtemoc Ortega countered that Mohabir had been groomed by a con man who played on her emotions. Ortega said the case “is about Indira Mohabir’s state of mind (and) whether she had intent to defraud Western Federal. She had no intent.”
Ortega described an online relationship that heated up “almost immediately” after Cook called the bank’s hotline and Mohabir picked up.
“They began professing their love for one another,” the defense attorney said, telling the jury that Cook sent the loan processor 18 white roses to her desk at the credit union.
“She believed that Mr. Cook loved her,” he said.
Cook conveyed the impression to Mohabir that he was a successful businessman with a high income, Ortega said in his opening statement.
Edgar Sandoval, a fraud investigator with the UNIFY Financial Credit Union — formerly Western Federal — testified that almost immediately, Mohabir began helping Cook open what would be nearly 30 credit lines, including more than a dozen platinum business Visa cards.