Keyondre Deionta Purvis has been sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for his part in a fraud scheme against North Carolina's State Employees' Credit Union (SECU) that Credit Union Times put at $473,000. The trade publication reported on October 27, 2026, that Purvis is the second defendant to be sentenced in the scheme, which exploited an account-processing vulnerability in 2022.
Source: Credit Union Times
The sentence is the latest step in a federal case built in Raleigh, in the Eastern District of North Carolina, against four men accused of draining member accounts by making the credit union's own reconciliation process lie about how much money was in them.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
How the scheme worked, step by step
According to the federal indictment, in the summer of 2022 the defendants carried out the fraud by exploiting a security vulnerability at SECU. After securing access to numerous SECU accounts, they engaged in sham transactions — repeatedly depositing and withdrawing funds from member accounts to artificially inflate the accounts' assumed balances during a reconciliation period.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
With the balances artificially inflated, the defendants then withdrew large amounts of cash in excess of the true account balances, the indictment says. Once the sham activity and the inflated withdrawals were complete, the accounts were left with negative balances that were not repaid — and that unpaid hole, prosecutors say, is what defrauded SECU.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
The four men in the case
A federal grand jury indicted Purvis — listed in the indictment at age 27 — together with Calvin Daminice Stewart, 29, Michael Raekwon Ryner, 29, and Quavedrian Da'mon Gibson, 27. The case is docketed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina as Case No. 5:25-CR-00204. Credit Union Times reports Purvis is the second of the defendants to reach sentencing; it does not name the first in its sentencing report.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
The State Employees' Credit Union is a member-owned, state-chartered credit union headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina — in other words, the savings of North Carolina state employees and other public workers, held in a cooperative its members own.
Announcing the indictment, U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle for the Eastern District of North Carolina said: “Protecting the integrity of banks and credit unions that serve North Carolina's public is a top priority. We will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners to investigate allegations of fraud and safeguard the trust and money placed in these institutions.”
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
Who investigated and who is prosecuting
The FBI is leading the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorney David G. Beraka is prosecuting the case, the Justice Department said. At the indictment stage, U.S. Magistrate Judge James E. Gates presided over co-defendant Stewart's initial appearance in federal court.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
Why this matters beyond one credit union
The method alleged here is the part every bank and credit union customer should understand: the fraud did not depend on breaking a vault or forging a signature. On the indictment's account, it depended on timing — on moving money in and out fast enough that, during the window before accounts were reconciled, the system showed balances that were not real, and cash could be taken out against those phantom balances. Reconciliation windows exist in some form at every financial institution, which is why a 2022 vulnerability at one Raleigh credit union became a federal case, and why tellers and apps across the country now hold, delay or flag unusual deposit-and-withdrawal cycles.
A note on what is proven and what is alleged
Purvis's own role has now reached a sentence, as reported by Credit Union Times. For the wider scheme, the Justice Department's indictment remains an accusation: an indictment is merely an accusation, and defendants whose charges have not been resolved are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The $473,000 figure is Credit Union Times' reported scale of the scheme; the indictment itself describes the mechanics and the unpaid negative balances without, in its announcement, putting a single dollar total on the loss.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of North Carolina
What happens next
The remaining proceedings in Case No. 5:25-CR-00204 continue in the Eastern District of North Carolina, where the court file and PACER docket are the public record for any further pleas or sentencings. For SECU's members — the state employees whose deposits sit in the credit union — the case now moves from the courtroom to the institution's own accounting: how much of the loss is recovered is a question the sentencing record, not the indictment announcement, will answer as the case closes.