Theft, or Costly Error? UB Manager Arrested for Missing $20K

You may have heard that a local bank employee working for Springdale-based United Bank was recently fired and later arrested for alleged felony theft and embezzlement of bank funds.

According to a preliminary report filed by the Washington County prosecutor, Connie Jordan, branch manager of the United Bank on Joyce Boulevard in Fayetteville, told investigators she was transferring funds from one account to another, and then deleting the record of the transfer, in order to pay off a $25,000 loss from a past transaction error.

But according to the prosecutor’s preliminary report, “… Jordan was not simply paying back a missing amount of money from the bank but taking it.”

Bank personnel told police $22,899 was missing, and according to the prosecutor’s report, “Jordan stated she had been knowingly and willfully concealing the fact money was missing by transferring the missing amount to various locations in the bank when audits were performed.”

We reached out to UB president and CEO Nathan Gairhan with a couple of questions, but he declined to comment on the personnel matter.

If, in fact, an error had been made and all Jordan was trying to do was fix it, then that’s too bad. She should have come clean about the transaction and thrown herself at the mercy of her employer.

Instead she doesn’t have a job and faces up to 30 years in prison. If she is found guilty, Whispers doubts she’ll do hard time. Nobody got hurt. No blood was spilled. And Jordan apparently doesn’t have a criminal history. She’ll likely cut a plea deal, spend a token amount of time in jail, and agree to pay back the money.

What a costly mistake.