Gary Rickenbach, former senior vice president of One Bank & Trust in Little Rock, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and four other offenses by the U.S. attorney’s office Wednesday.
The other charges in the indictment were misapplication of bank monies, making false entries to deceive federal banking regulators, obstructing a bank examination and money laundering. The indictment also seeks repayment of the money involved.
Rickenbach, 56, of Little Rock, did not return a phone call Wednesday seeking comment on the indictment.
“When a bank executive misuses their position, it violates the public trust and puts the financial stability of the institution at risk,” Christopher Henry, special agent in charge of the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation division in Nashville, Tenn., said in a news release.
Instead of dealing with a bad loan of $1.5 million that couldn’t be collected, Rickenbach and others in early 2009 purportedly attempted to hide the loss from nonbank board members and federal regulators, and Rickenbach looked to the federal bailout program to fund his fraud, Christy Romero, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said in the release.
The FBI, the Federal Reserve and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also were involved in the investigation.
In September 2012, federal regulators sanctioned One Bank for the third time and ordered Layton Stuart, chairman and chief executive officer of the bank, to relinquish his positions and all of his bank property. Stuart died in March 2013.
In a September 2012 memorandum obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2013, Rickenbach told the One Bank board that he expected to be questioned by federal regulators about his involvement in the handling of three loans, causing regulators to question his “integrity and honesty.”
“None of the transactions involves diverting assets for my personal use,” Rickenbach said in the memorandum.
Rickenbach, who left the bank in February 2013, faces a possible sentence of not more than five years in prison and not more than a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy charge. The maximum sentence for the money laundering conspiracy charge is not more than 20 years in prison and not more than a $500,000 fine.
Business, Pages 23 on 04/03/2014