Thomas Keenum Sr. of Booneville, MS has been sentenced to 22 months for federal bank fraud. The once prominent attorney according to Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal plead guilty in August 2010 to a scheme to defraud BancorpSouth of Booneville through a $135,447 loan. His sentencing was delayed more than two years by a personal bankruptcy filing and difficulties in determining the total amount of the fraud, was has a bearing on guidelines presented to the judge. Twenty two months is a slap on the wrist though compared to the 30 years and $1 million fine possible for his crime.
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"This is a case about lying to a bank to get money," the Assistant U.S. District Attorney told the jury regarding Courtney Dupree, above. He was found guilty last week of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and two counts of making false statements.
Former University of North Carolina basketball player Courtney Dupree was found guilty last week of lying about receivables to New York-based Amalgamated Bank to maintain a line of credit for his holding company GDC Acquisitions LLC, which owned lighting and furniture dealers.
Though the jury heard a month long trial, it only took them five and a half hours to deliberate, according to Business Week. Amalgamated relized $16 million in losses due to Dupree’s crime. Dupree was found guilty of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and two counts of making a false statement.
He faces up to 30 years in prison.
According to prosecutors, in August 2008 several GDC units, with the parent as guarantor, made an agreement with Amalgamated that allowed them to borrow as much as $21 million. Instead, the defendents booked fictitious sales, prematurely recognized sales, re-dated sales and failed to reduce receivables after being paid by customers.
“This is a case about lying to a bank to get money.” Assistant US Attorney David Woll told jurors during the trial, “It is about telling lies over and over again in order to grab millions of dollars of the bank’s money.”
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Frank Ignacio Urbano and his gang of desk managers defrauded customers and banks out of thousands by submitting falsified records stemming from their southern California car dealership.
The part-owner of a used car dealership in southern California and three desk managers have been convicted for their roles in a scheme that stole the identities of unsuspecting customers and defrauding banks in the sale of used cars.
Part-owner Frank Urbano plead guilty in May to felonies including 43 counts of forgery, 31 counts of grand theft and two counts of conspiracy. He was sentenced to one year in jail and five years probation. Desk managers Luz Corral and Kevin DeRosier also plead guilty to the same charges. DeRosier received 240 days in jail and Corral received a 360-day sentence. Both also received five years probation. The third desk manager, Marwan Abdellatif, remains at-large.
According to the OCWeekly, the dealership went under investigation after the Orange County District Attorney’s office found that dating back to 2005, more than two dozen police reports had been filed regarding the Douglas Nissan dealership and more than 100 unfair business complaints had also been filed with the DMV and Better Business Bureau.
Urbano and his gang of desk managers each participated in a scheme that sold used cars at prices above their value to drive up the cost of monthly payments by customers. False loan information was submitted to defraud lenders and customers, who unwittingly had unaffordable loans secured in their names. The conspirators primarily targeted Spanish-speaking customers who did not have proper identification or understand the process of buying a vehicle.
All tolled, the group defrauded banks out of an estimated $911,500 in financing through the submission of falsified records, the OCDA said, which counted eight known banks and lending institutions among the fleeced. In fact, Bank of America stopped conducting business with Douglas Nissan in June of 2007 because of the high number of fraudulent vehicle loan packages from the dealership.
Read MoreSentencing has been delayed for former University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert in a federal bank fraud case, the Associated Press reports. Originally scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in Lincoln, the sentencing was reset for December 29 because of a trial conflict with the defense. Hergert admitted inflating business assets to keep $3 million from an Omaha bank, pleading guilty in March to one count of submitting a false document to a bank. Hergert was removed from the university’s board of regents in 2006 after the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled he broke campaign financing laws during his 2004 regent campaign and lied to conceal it. He lost his grain storage operation in 2010 after officials discovered a grain shortage.
Read MoreJustin Compton convinced banks and southwest Missouri businesses to take his checks by saying he was a tornado victim and a former army sergeant, neither of which were true.
Meet Justin Compton.
Justin has just plead guilty to defrauding four banks while claiming he was a victim of the Joplin, Missouri tornados.
According to court documents, Justin bilked more than $160,000 from southwest Missouri businesses by writing bad checks to four banks, including Regions Bank in Ozark.
Allegedly Justin opened a checking account and began writing checks to businesses, but never deposited any money into the account, Springfield News Leader reports. When the checks began to bounce, Justin convinced businesses and bank representatives to take his checks by telling them he was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and a tornado victim, even though neither was true.
He is currently in custody, faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
Read MoreWBAL-TV is reporting that two Baltimore men have been indicted on murder and conspiracy charges in the death of a witness to a federal bank fraud investigation. Tavon Davis and Bruce Byrd have been indicted with several charges, including murder for hire, murder, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and weapons violations. Isaiah Callaway was killed in April, a few days after his attorney informed Davis officials wanted to interview Callaway about a fraud scheme Davis was involved in. According to the indictment, from May 2009 to November 2011, Davis, Byrd, Callaway and other stole more than $513,000 in money orders and checks from rent deposit boxes at apartment complexes and deposited the money into fraudulent accounts. They then withdrew the money from ATMs before the banks discovered the fraud. In December 2010, Callaway was caught and charged with counterfeiting and theft, and confessed his role in the larger scheme. Davis referred Callaway to a lawyer to fight the case, and the lawyer told Davis that Callaway had flipped. The indictment says that Davis and Byrd planned Callaway’s killing for months, and Davis paid Byrd $2,000 for the hit. Both Davis and Byrd are in custody and face life in prison if convicted.
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A bank president that had worked at Farmers and Merchants Bank of Waterloo, AL is going to jail.
Back in April, we brought you the story of former Farmers and Merchants Bank vice president Dwayne Holcombe, who tried to float his borrowers along by altering due-dates.
Now he has been sentenced to two years and five months in prison on one count of bank fraud and three counts of false entry in bank records. according to the National Newswire Service. Holcombe must also pay $1.3 million in restitution and forfeit the same amount to the government.
A refresher for those who don’t remember, beginning in 2004 Holcombe began changing paper and computer records to extend the due-date on certain loans. Those changes cause the bank not to generate late notices when the loans actually were due and no payment was received. The delinquent notices would have been reviewed by bank officers and been made available to bank examiners and auditors. Holcombe made more than 500 changers to loan due-dates through August 2010, at which time he was caught.
From June to July of 2010, Holcombe began altering computer loan records by replacing the borrowers name with the name of another bank customer who had not received the loan. He did this on eight loans.
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In what is being called the largest fraud in Arkansas history, Kevin Lewis (left) fleeced seven banks statewide for nearly $47 million.
In one for the record books, a Little Rock lawyer and businessman has been convicted of selling tens of millions of dollars in fake bonds to banks statewide, putting at least one out of business.
According to KTHV-TV, Kevin Lewis found a way to create fake bonds, called rural district improvement bonds, and sold them to banks in exchange for loans for him and his business. The FDIC discovered the crime after spotting the fake bonds in an audit on First Southern Bank.
Prosecutors say Centennial, Citizens, Liberty, First Community, Allied, Simmons, and Regions Banks were also victims. The intended loss amount in this case is approximately $47 million.
The “largest fraudster in Arkansas History” as termed by prosecutors, is free on his own accord right now, and scheduled for sentencing on December 9th.
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Richard Wickens, left, knowingly filed false financial statements to Bank of Albuquerque in order to obtain a line of credit for his artificial turf company.
Former owner of Real Turf Putting Greens Richard Wickens has admitted to submitting false financial statements, according to the Rio Rancho Observer.
Prosecutors say Wickens tried to secure a line of credit from Bank of Albuquerque by providing information showing his company made a $100,000 profit in the first six months of 2006. Wickens says he knew the financial statements misrepresented the financial condition of the company, but he allowed the bank to loan him $1.3 million based on the false financial statements.
That money was never repaid. Wickens has agreed to pay his victims $1.2 million in restitution and agreed to his prison sentence of 26 to 33 months.
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