A former Northwest Community Credit Union employee was sentenced Friday, Nov. 13, to 2½ years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing from the accounts of deceased credit union members.

Teresa Lynn Margiotta, 51, of Springfield, pleaded guilty in October in Lane County Circuit Court to three counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of aggravated first-degree theft.

She was arrested in January by Eugene police. In a news release, the Lane County District Attorney’s office said Margiotta embezzled more than $232,000 from the accounts of deceased members of Northwest Community Credit Union, which is now known as Peak Credit Union.

As part of plea negotiations with prosecutors, two counts of aggravated first-degree theft and one count of aggravated identity theft were dismissed.

A sentencing memorandum filed by defense attorney Timothy P. Fleming stated that Margiotta was a senior support services specialist who worked for nearly 20 years at the credit union.

In the early 2020s, Margiotta “began to accrue significant debt,” Fleming said, describing her spending as “consistent with a compulsive buying-shopping disorder.”

Of the amount embezzled, the “vast majority of the funds paid credit card debt accrued at Best Buy, Sears, Costco, Old Navy, Ulta Beauty, and other similar retail establishments,” Fleming wrote in the memo, which asked for a sentence of 60 months of supervised probation rather than prison.

Lane County Circuit Judge Charles Zennaché instead ordered the prison sentence, which will be followed by three years of post-prison supervision.

The Lane County District Attorney’s office said the embezzlement took place between August 2023 and March 2025, and that Margiotta was fired from her job. 

The credit union accounts were refunded, according to the district attorney’s office, but Margiotta has been ordered to pay $232,725.84 in restitution.