The Federal Court in Fresno has postponed the sentencing of Bishop Resident JoAnn Barba until June.
Barba faces up to 30 years in prison for the crime. wamu300.jpg

In February, the former bank employee had pleaded guilty to the embezzlement of $760,000 from the Bishop branch of Washington Mutual Bank. It was not until May of 2008, that Barba was arrested for the reported crime.

Up until the Washington Mutual investigators started to look into the crime, Barba had worked as a Personal Financial Representative for the bank. Lauren Horwood, with the US Department of Justice reports that Barba embezzled approximately $760,000 between December of 2005 and April of 2007. Barba took the money out of the accounts of elderly people and repaid some of these accounts with money embezzled from other accounts, according to Horwood. After the Bank repaid the accounts, Horwood says that WAMU would ultimately suffer a loss of $600,000.

Barba was not considered a flight risk. After the arrest, a judge allowed her to be released from custody. One of the stipulations of the release, hand written onto the release paperwork, was that Barba could not enter a casino or other business establishment where gambling or gaming activities are conducted.

Court documents show that the sentencing set for Friday was postponed due to the unavailability of the federal defender and also to allow more time to find a place for Barbas daughter to stay in the event that Barba is sentenced to prison.

The sentencing date has been postponed until June 12.

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