A former Texas bank president who has issued millions in fake loans over nearly a decade and set fire to try to cover up the fraud was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
Anita Gail Moody, 57, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and arson.
She was ordered to pay more than $ 11 million in restitution, which is what the now closed Enloe State Bank she ran lost, said the East Texas District Attorney.
Moody was president of the bank in Cooper, about 80 miles northeast of Dallas, and the fraud that she pleaded guilty began in 2012.
In May 2019 – the day before the Texas Banking Department carried out a review – Moody set fire to the bank’s office with files left on a table, all burned, prosecutors said.
It has created more than 100 fraudulent loans over the years, prosecutors said in court documents.
She used part of the money in the business of her boyfriend and friends, for her family and for her own lifestyle, including a Jeep. Other federal investigators said that some of the loans were taken out to pay interest and principal on others, so nothing seemed wrong.
Moody “has experienced great remorse for these events and takes full responsibility for his actions,” Moody’s lawyer, John C. Ginn, said by email Tuesday night.
“She is ready to serve her sentence and will make amends as circumstances permit in the future,” he said.
Ginn argued in court documents that Moody worked for the bank throughout her adult life and described a life out of control, adding that she first lent the money out of sympathy, but in 2012 she started using the loans for herself.
“Criminal conduct that affects the financial health of a small local creditor can have a negative ripple effect on the entire community,” said Union prosecutor Nicholas J. Ganjei in a statement.
The bank was closed by the Texas Department of Banks in 2019. It had been licensed in 1928. At the time, the department said it was forced to do so “due to internal abuse and fraud by ex-officers”.
A former bank vice president, Jeannie Swaim, last year pleaded guilty to a single charge and was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay more than $ 410,000 in restitution, according to the US attorney’s office. USA and court records.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees deposits, was named as a liquidator after the bank went bankrupt. The loss to the agency’s deposit insurance fund was about $ 21 million, said a report by the inspector general.
