Mug Shot Monday – The You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours Con
February 24, 2014
By Bob Coleman
Editor, Coleman Report
This is a twist on a commercial lender con.
The feds allege two Delaware commercial lenders, working for different banks, made loans to each other over a 12-year period for fake commercial real state investments and below market car loans.
Brian Bailey plead not guilty last week to bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank bribery, corruptly receiving a gift in exchange for a loan and corruptly providing gifts to influence bank employees and money laundering.
Joseph Ladio is the other banker in the scheme. Last December, he plead guilty to bank fraud and money laundering to charges unrelated to Bailey.
The charges against Bailey are supported by the following prosecutor allegations against the two:
Concealed from their respective financial institutions that each had authorized loans to the other on multiple occasions;
Misrepresented on multiple loan documents the purposes for which loans funds would be utilized, or were willfully blind to the true nature of the requests;
Filed to conduct basic underwriting functions required by their respective financial institutions and industry standards with respect to these loans;
Used their personal signature authorities as commercial lenders to originate commercial loans and lines of credit for what they knew to be consumer debt purposes, thus circumventing the financial institutions’ approval processes and permitting them to provide loans on more favorable terms than what would have otherwise been approved; and
Provided an accepted loan accommodations to each other that were not available to the general public.