BRIEF: Higginsville body shop owner pleads to bank fraud 

BRIEF: Higginsville body shop owner pleads to bank fraud

Nov 29, 2012 (Menafn - The Kansas City Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --A Higginsville, Mo., body shop owner pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to defrauding more than 2 million from banks receiving federal bailout money.

Clint Edward Dukes, 35, admitted taking the money from First Community Bank, U.S. Bank and First Central Bank from March 2004 to July 2011. He claimed to the banks that he did repair work on state vehicles and gave the banks fraudulent invoices to prove it. He also filed bogus financial disclosure statements, which concealed that he was using loans from each bank to pay off loans from the other banks.

The corporate parents of First Community Bank and U.S. Bank each received money from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

"TARP was designed to help financial institutions recover from the economic downturn, not to provide a cash cow that dishonest business owners could plunder," acting U.S. attorney David M. Ketchmark said in a written statement.

Lawyers calculated the actual loss to the banks at 2,053,949, which Duke must forfeit to the government. He faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

To reach Mark Morris, call 816-234-4310 or email mmorris@kcstar.com.

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