Little Rock farmer sentenced for $3.3M loan fraud; prosecutor calls him 'menace to honest people'

Only thinking of me, he tells his family

FILE — U.S. District Court in Little Rock is shown in this file photo.
FILE — U.S. District Court in Little Rock is shown in this file photo.

Those betrayed by businessman Marcus Sweetin now consider him a liar, a manipulator and a "menace to honest people," federal prosecutor Alex Morgan said Wednesday.

Sweetin apologized Wednesday for falsifying loan applications that resulted in a theft of more than $3.3 million. He was subsequently sentenced to 33 months in prison.

"You deceived many people at a great expense," U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. told Sweetin before he sentenced him.

Sweetin, 46, of Little Rock operated Sweetin Farms LLC, which farmed two parcels in Arkansas and Prairie counties. Court documents show that he made false statements to AgHeritage Farm Credit Services in April 2013. He told the company he needed $140,000 to replenish the funds he used to purchase a heavy-duty tractor for which he had paid outright.

In reality, the $201,000 tractor had been financed through another lender, authorities said.

That was one in a series of fraudulent loan documents Sweetin submitted. In the end, Sweetin owes more than $2.7 million to AgHeritage Farm Credit, $463,000 to Regions Bank and another $93,000 to BancorpSouth, according to court records.

"When he did what he did, it was more than doing it to himself and his wife," Morgan said, adding that Sweetin tarnished his family's name and took advantage of the inherent trust others gave him.

Sweetin apologized to his father, wife and two children.

"The only person I was thinking about was me," he said.

Sweetin is scheduled to report Jan. 7 to a federal prison in Texarkana to begin serving his sentence.

Allison Bragg, a U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman, said Sweetin has already begun paying his restitution, lowering the amount he owes from $3.3 million to $3.2 million.

Metro on 11/22/2019

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