Credit Union Swindle: 8 Months for Fake Robbery

⏱ 2 min read

RELATED: Elderly Ripped Off: $5M Scam Lands DR National in US Jail

SCRANTON, PA – Nicole Hilstolsky, 48, of Swoyersville, Pennsylvania, will spend the next eight months behind bars after pleading guilty to a brazen scheme to steal from the now-shuttered WOD Federal Credit Union. Senior U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani handed down the sentence today, followed by two years of supervised release.

According to prosecutors, Hilstolsky didn’t need a gun or a mask. She just needed access. On October 15, 2018, while employed at WOD, she pocketed $16,247 from the teller and safe. Instead of owning up, she concocted a lie – a full-blown, 911-fueled fabrication of an armed robbery.

Hilstolsky told responding officers she’d been held up, diverting investigators down a false path while she stashed the cash inside the credit union itself. She planned to retrieve it later, a delay of game that ultimately failed. The FBI and Forty Fort Police Department weren’t buying it.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James M. Buchanan brought the case, proving Hilstolsky wasn’t a victim, but the perpetrator of a calculated and deceitful theft.