---

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 1, 1992                   TAG: 9112310298
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: Leslie Taylor
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

---

NAMES IN '91

Cheryl Benson Perry's embezzlement of $2.5 million from the Charter Federal Savings Bank earned her a possible place in the history books. Authorities maintained that Perry's embezzlement was Virginia's largest since 1956.

The embezzlement also earned Perry a four-year federal prison sentence and left Charter Federal tangling in court to recoup its losses.

Perry pleaded guilty in February to making unauthorized withdrawals from the accounts of 47 Charter Federal customers and transferring the money to 20 single and jointly held accounts in her name and in the names of relatives and friends. The scheme started in 1981 and continued until May 1990, when her activities were discovered.

Perry was sentenced in September to serve four years at a federal facility in Lexington, Ky.

Charter Federal sued its fidelity insurer to recover the embezzled money. The Bristol, Tenn.-based thrift asked for $3 million from the Dearborn Insurance Co. of Chicago to compensate for the loss of the embezzled money, costs and legal fees, plus $1 million in punitive damages.

The bank settled with Dearborn in October and a month later revealed that it had recovered $1.93 million from the insurer - not quite what Charter Federal had requested.

The recovered money will be reflected as net income to the bank in the second quarter of its 1992 fiscal year, Charter Federal Chairman E.L. Byington said earlier.

Keywords:
YEAR 1991

---