A former Illinois contractor avoided prison time when a judge sentenced him to three years of supervised release, 200 hours of community service and a $9,500 fine for his role in a bank fraud scheme involving straw buyers and overvalued properties.
The Belleville Daily News reports Gregg Crawford teamed with his brother-in-law, Francis “Frank” Eversman, a senior loan officer at the former Tempo Bank in Trenton, Illinois, between 2011 to 2020 on a scheme where straw purchasers were recruited to act as nominal loan applicants on what were often highly overvalued properties. Eversman steered these loans through the approval process while Crawford used the loan proceeds for other purposes.
In some cases, Crawford provided fake lease agreements to purport to show rental income from subject properties. When at audit by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency discovered the suspect loans, Crawford instructed a straw purchaser to provide investigators with false information.
Crawford and Eversman pleaded guilty last June. Chief Judge Nancy Rosenstengel of the US District Court for the Southern District of Illinois rejected the prosecution’s request to sentence Crawford to prison for at least one year. Rosenstengel noted Crawford was a 66-year-old retiree with no previous criminal record, adding that he was dealing with health problems while serving as the primary caregiver for his ailing wife.
Eversman, 75, was sentenced last December to three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay a $9,500 fine and to complete 40 hours of community service.
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