In the first case to go to trial in the failure of a crooked Bridgeport bank, Robert M. Kowalski was found guilty Friday of embezzling $8 million from Washington Federal Bank for Savings and concealing more than $560,000 in assets when he went bankrupt.

Kowalski, 60, was a longtime friend, customer and business partner of the late John F. Gembara, who was Washington Federal’s president, chief executive officer and majority shareholder. Federal authorities say Gembara ran the embezzlement scheme that caused federal regulators to shut down the bank his father and grandfather previously ran.

Former Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson previously went to prison for income-tax fraud and lying to authorities about more than $200,000 he got from Washington Federal.

Kowalski, a divorced father of five children, could face a sentence of decades in prison.

Prosecutors asked that he immediately be taken into custody.

“When you take money and property from a bank….and you don’t pay it back …. you’re not a bank customer, you’re a criminal,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin M. Pinkston told the jury.