Bank Fraud

Former Ohio State and NFL quarterback Art Schlichter pleaded guilty to a federal charge of bank fraud for stealing and writing $175,000 in bad checks. Schlichter, 34, entered the plea agreement yesterday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas and was taken into custody immediately. The maximum sentence for federal bank fraud is 30 years and/ or $1 million, but Schlichter is expected to get 18 to 24 months, according to his lawyer, Frank Cremen. "He's a self-admitted gambling addict that has cost him careers and relationships, yet he hasn't gotten counseling," assistant U.S. attorney John Ham said in arguing that Schlichter be jailed.

The way U.S. District Judge Jay Waldman saw it yesterday, former informant Wayne E. Caldwell's undercover work for the FBI over a 15-year period didn't entitle Caldwell to a "get-out-of-jail-forever card. " Caldwell, 38, who was a crook and a paid informant at the same time, already had been spared from a prison sentence at least once in the recent past as a reward for his work for the FBI. But pleas for leniency didn't strike a judge's fancy this time around. Rejecting defense arguments that Caldwell might be harmed in jail by inmates who detest informants, the judge sentenced Caldwell to two years in prison for a $100,000 bank fraud.

Move over, gumshoes, the day of the rumpled trench coat is fading. In a renovated house in Ambler, detectives hunker down at computer terminals looking for clues. In this age of savings and loan scandals and computer check-cashing schemes, the National Fraud Investigation Center Inc. is thriving. The NFIC, a private company that specializes in bank fraud recovery and prevention, has a client list that reads like a Who's Who in business, with Fortune 500 companies, national bank firms and law offices.

A real estate investor once described by tenants as a "millionaire slumlord" was charged Friday with defrauding banks of $10 million in an effort to shore up his rowhouse empire in Kensington and Port Richmond. The charges against Robert Coyle Sr., 66, of Glassboro, were handed up by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia. Coyle is accused of defrauding the East River Bank and Republic First Bank of more than $10 million in 2007 - at the height of the real estate bubble - by lying to the banks about property titles and income from rental houses put up as collateral.

By day, Antoine Norman claimed he earned a meager living working as a barber on Ogontz Avenue while shuttling to and from his rowhouse in East Mount Airy. But behind the doors of his modest home, authorities said yesterday, Norman wasn't counting his pennies from clipping hair. He was counting his millions from clipping bank accounts in two states as part of a massive bank fraud operation. His conspirators, authorities said, included U.S. postal employees and tellers who worked for one of the region's largest banks.

A bank teller from Willingboro has been indicted on federal charges of taking part in a fraud scheme that relied on stealing the identities of her former employer's customers. Patricia Lightsey, 27, and James Hull, 49, of Troy, N.Y., netted $170,820 from the plot, according to the indictment. A federal grand jury alleged that Lightsey, while a teller for TD Bank, sold to an unidentified person the identifying information, including dates of birth, driver's license numbers, social security numbers, and bank account numbers of bank customers between July and October 2011.

The former chairman and chief executive of the now-defunct Bell Savings Bank of Upper Darby was sentenced to a year in federal prison yesterday for defrauding his bank of more than $3.4 million. Jay M. Gross, 75, who had stood to hear the sentence, reeled and then slumped into a chair as U.S. District Judge Herbert J. Hutton pronounced the sentence. In addition to the jail time, Hutton ordered Gross to pay a fine of $100,000 and to serve three years of probation. Hutton said he would recommend to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons that Gross serve his confinement in a community setting such as a halfway house where he might be allowed to perform community service or participate in a work-release program.

A Philadelphia man was sentenced to 10 years in a federal lockup today for his role in a scheme to steal checks written on a Texas city's bank account which were later deposited into a bank account here. Jonathan Battles, 46, of West Germantown, was convicted of conspiracy and bank fraud after a trial in May 2010. It was the fourth federal fraud conviction for Battles. U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe also ordered Battles to pay restitution of $80,494. He was taken into custody immediately after sentencing.

Three area men have been identified as participants in a scheme that diverted nearly $50 million from a New York bank to a Mellon Bank account in Philadelphia earlier this year. The three were among 10 defendants indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury here on conspiracy and fraud charges. The defendants, some identified as mob associates from New York, hoped to have the money sent to a bank account overseas, so they could steal it, authorities said. But the FBI foiled the plot after an informant tipped authorities to what could have been one of the largest bank frauds in history, said Assistant U.S. Attorneys Allison D. Burroughs and Abigail R. Simkus, of the Organized Crime Division.

A real estate investor once described by tenants as a "millionaire slumlord" was charged Friday with defrauding banks of $10 million in an effort to shore up his rowhouse empire in Kensington and Port Richmond. The charges against Robert Coyle Sr., 66, of Glassboro, were handed up by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia. Coyle is accused of defrauding the East River Bank and Republic First Bank of more than $10 million in 2007 - at the height of the real estate bubble - by lying to the banks about property titles and income from rental houses put up as collateral.