Banker Pleads Guilty in Robin Hood-Like Scheme to Help Borrowers
A Chicago-area banker has pleaded guilty to federal bank fraud charges in connection with a Robin Hood-like scheme to make it seem as though customers were keeping up with the payments on their delinquent loans.
Jeffrey Gonsiewski, a former vice president at First Security Trust & Savings Bank in suburban Elmwood Park, Ill., admitted to changing the terms of at least 100 loans between 2004 and 2009 to help customers weather the tough economic times, according to a report Thursday in the Chicago Tribune.
“I thought I was helping the customer stay afloat, so to speak, as the times got bad, and that economically it would improve, and everything would get back to a normal situation,” Gonsiewski told a federal court judge Wednesday by way of explanation.
Terrence LeFevour, Gonsiewski’s lawyer, told the judge that his client had not personally profited from the doctored loans. He said he did it in the hope that customers would eventually be able to pay off the loans in full.
Gonsiewki, who will be sentenced Dec. 3, faces 4 to 6½ years in prison under the terms of his plea bargain agreement with federal prosecutors, who said the fraudulent loans had cost the bank at least $5.5 million in losses.
A lawyer for First Security, part of the Wirtz family conglomerate, which also owns the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, said bank officials were “disappointed” in the conduct outlined in the charges against Gonsiewski.
