NEW YORK -- The former chief executive of a New York bank shut down by regulators last week was arrested Monday for attempting to steal from the taxpayer-funded bailout program, marking the first time criminal charges have been filed in connection with alleged abuse of the government's financial-rescue effort.
According to a 10-count criminal complaint unsealed Monday in federal court in Manhattan, Charles Antonucci Sr., former president and chief executive of privately owned Park Avenue Bank, orchestrated an elaborate scheme to defraud the bank and its regulators.
Investigators said Antonucci tried to fraudulently obtain $11.3 million from the Treasury Department's Troubled Assets Relief Program by lying about the bank's capital levels in its November 2008 application for bailout funds. He told regulators that he had invested $6.5 million of his personal money to boost the bank's capital, the complaint said, even though the investment was made with the bank's own funds through a "series of deceptive, round-trip loan transactions" devised by Antonucci.
rest at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031502502.html
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