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Ex-Bank President Gets 2 Years in Prison in Bailout Fraud
Source: Associated Press
Ex-Bank President Gets 2 Years in Prison in Bailout Fraud
NEW YORK — Aug 20, 2015, 7:50 PM ET
By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press
A one-time small community bank president who became the first person convicted of trying to rip off the federal bailout program was sentenced on Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison by a judge who said time behind bars was necessary because his crimes were too serious for his cooperation with the government to win his freedom.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald sentenced Charles Antonucci Sr. in Manhattan, where he was president of The Park Avenue Bank before his arrest in a fraud prosecutors said included bank bribery, self-dealing, embezzlement of bank funds and a failed effort to fraudulently get more than $11 million worth of taxpayer rescue funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
The government said the 64-year-old Fishkill and Woodside resident also participated in a $37.5 million fraud that left an Oklahoma insurance company in receivership during a crime spree between 2006 and 2009.
"Even though he's cooperated, he committed enormous crimes," the judge said. "It isn't enough to say, 'I've been caught, I'll cooperate and everything will be right with the world and I'll just go home.'"
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NEW YORK — Aug 20, 2015, 7:50 PM ET
By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press
A one-time small community bank president who became the first person convicted of trying to rip off the federal bailout program was sentenced on Thursday to 2 1/2 years in prison by a judge who said time behind bars was necessary because his crimes were too serious for his cooperation with the government to win his freedom.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald sentenced Charles Antonucci Sr. in Manhattan, where he was president of The Park Avenue Bank before his arrest in a fraud prosecutors said included bank bribery, self-dealing, embezzlement of bank funds and a failed effort to fraudulently get more than $11 million worth of taxpayer rescue funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
The government said the 64-year-old Fishkill and Woodside resident also participated in a $37.5 million fraud that left an Oklahoma insurance company in receivership during a crime spree between 2006 and 2009.
"Even though he's cooperated, he committed enormous crimes," the judge said. "It isn't enough to say, 'I've been caught, I'll cooperate and everything will be right with the world and I'll just go home.'"
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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/bank-president-years-prison-bailout-fraud-33215912
