United States v. Wiseman
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
274 F.3d 1235 (2001)
Marvin Wiseman and William Mett (defendants), president and vice president of a Hawaii art gallery and trustees of its ERISA-covered employee pension fund, faced financial ruin after a felony art-fraud conviction combined with an economic downturn; without telling employees or federal regulators, they withdrew $1.6 million from the pension fund into the gallery's operating accounts, later characterizing the withdrawal at trial as a 'loan' they believed employees would have authorized to save their jobs. They were convicted of embezzling ERISA pension funds after both a jury trial and a subsequent bench retrial.
Whether a defendant's intent to repay money taken without authorization is generally a defense to a charge of embezzlement.