Former Illinois banker pleads guilty to bank fraud involving loans

Northwestern Financial Review, Feb 20, 1999

A former St. Louis-area banker pleaded guilty to bank fraud for concealing $1.5 million in loans to two topless bars.

Jeffery J. Thomas, 38, Smithton, defrauded Magna Bank, and West Pointe Bank & Trust Co. of Belleville by obtaining loans without disclosing their true purpose, according to a U.S. Department of Justice release.

Prosecutors said that Thomas used straw parties-businessmen used as fronts-and provided fake collateral, and failed to provide adequate collateral for the loans.

Thomas pleaded guilty on Jan. 15 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois in Fairview Heights. He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 24 and faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

From 1990 to 1996, Thomas served as a bank officer at Magna Bank. In late 1996, he took a job at West Pointe Bank. While at the banks, Thomas and two others entered into a business venture to build two nightclubs in Centreville, Ill., and Washington Park, Ill., according to the release. Thomas would have shared in the nightclub profits.

According to the release, Thomas knew that if the true purposes of the loans were disclosed, the loans would not have been made.

Among those involved in the club ownership was former Washington Park police chief and convicted felon Robert Romanik, who ultimately received the loan proceeds.

Romanik previously was convicted with obstructing justice by lying to a grand jury investigating a video-gambling czar in 1994. On Jan. 25, Romanik had his probation revoked for involvement in the bank fraud case and was sentenced to a year in prison.