Mug Shot Monday – Borrower Indictment Follows Community Bank SVP Guilty Plea

August 25, 2014

By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report

sigtrap“SIGTARP special agents, along with agents from DOL-OIG and the FBI, arrested Wood, after our criminal investigation with law enforcement partners uncovered the fraud alleged in the indictment against TARP recipient Farmers Bank & Trust,” says SIGTARP (Special Inspector General for TARP.)

“Prior to and during the time the bank held TARP funds, Wood allegedly falsified information and fabricated invoices in order to obtain millions of dollars in commercial loans, directed some of the proceeds to her personal bank accounts, and then defaulted on the loans. Fraud perpetrated against a TARP bank is fraud perpetrated against taxpayers who funded the TARP bailout. SIGTARP and our law enforcement partners will aggressively investigate allegations of fraud related to TARP and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.”

Brenda Wood owned several companies in Kansas and hired her banker Michael Yancy in 2010.

Remember him?

He was the Kansas banker who pled guilty last month for lying to his loan committee about a $150,000 equity injection from a borrower. The $150,000 was fake. The borrower was Brenda Wood.

Now the other shoe has dropped for Brenda.

She has been indicted on five counts of bank fraud, one count of theft and four counts of willful ERISA violations.

The indictment alleges that Wood obtained loans for herself and her companies through Farmers Bank in Overland Park, Kan., by making false representations and submitting falsified documents to the bank.

The indictment alleges that:

· Wood obtained a loan on behalf of Riverview Crossings to purchase property in Bonner Springs in part by forging the signature of a second mortgage holder thereby releasing the deed.
· Wood submitted falsified invoices totaling more than $100,000 to support fraudulent draws on the Riverview Crossings loan.
· Wood obtained a loan on behalf of PCI to buy property in Basehor, Kan., in which she fraudulently inflated the purchase price to make it appear that the loan met the bank’s loan-tovalue ratio requirements.
· Wood obtained a $350,000 line of credit in part by fraudulently representing to the lender that her company, PCI, was awarded a contract to provide cleaning services at an Internal Revenue Service building in Kansas City, Mo. In fact, her company was not even a finalist for the contract.
· Wood diverted more than $200,000 from an escrow account for PCI to her personal account.
· Wood set up a 401(k) plan for PCI and embezzled more than $30,000 from the plan.
· Wood failed to file annual financial reports for the PCI 401(k) plan.

Wood faces hundreds of years in jail and million of dollars in fines.

Read the indictment here