Fraud Friday – Bank CEO Indicted for Fraudulent SBA Loan

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December 6, 2013

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

sbafraudgraph120613An Arkansas community bank CEO was indicted on 11 counts of bank fraud in connection with a SBA disaster loan.

John Stacks also owns Mountain Pure, a water bottling plant. After a tornado struck the area in 2008, the company received a $700,000 SBA disaster loan.

The indictment says Stacks made false statements to SBA about equipment and property that were damaged.

Reads the indictment, “John Stacks submitted a materially false and fraudulent claim to the SBA, that is, Stacks signed a Loan Authorization and Agreement certifying that all the representations in his loan application and supporting document were true, correct, completed and offered to induce SBA to make the disaster loan knowing that the claim for $703,300 was false and fraudulent in that Stacks misrepresented his financial condition and would not, therefore, have been approved for a loan but the material misrepresentations.”

They also accuse him of lying to the SBA about a contract to sell bottled water to an international third party vendor.

And projections. “Stacks caused a document to be emailed to SBA that contained false 2008 revenues and 2009 revenue projections for the MP Texas plant.”

Last year, the plant was raided by federal agents, including agents from the IRS and SBA, searching for evidence of “economic crimes,” in connection with the SBA loan.

Employees of the company have filed a lawsuit against the feds for how they were treated during the raid.

John Stacks maintains his innocence.

Arkansas Business writes….

In an interview with Arkansas Business on March 22, Stacks said he had received a target letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office a couple of weeks earlier. At that time, he said Mountain Pure had received “a clean bill of health” from the Internal Revenue Service and the SBA loan was not in arrears.

“Even as we sit here today, we’ve never been a day late,” Stacks said in March.

Read the indictment here

Read more here

Read about the employee lawsuit against the feds here