Friday, January 11, 2008

April 3 sentencing set for Bowman after today's guilty plea

An April 3 sentencing is set for Rep. John Bowman, D-St. Louis, who pleaded guilty this morning to bribing a bank official in connection with a bank and credit card fraud scheme.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bowman will resign from the Missouri House of Representatives effective Jan. 31.
The maximum penalty is one year in prison or a $100,000 fine.
Bowman's guilty plea closes the book on the fraud case, which initially had 17 defendants. The others have either pleaded guilty, or in the case of the ringleader, former Bank of America Vice President Robert Conner, or been found guilty following a trial.

Conner, Bowman, and the others were indicted in January 2007 by a federal grand jury, which said Bowman and his co-defendants agreed to a scheme in which Conner took a bank lending program which provided money to small businesses by offering a $25,000 credit limit, then arranged with the other defendants to apply for the loans, often with fictitious companies, then give Conner kickbacks ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 on each loan.
According to the indictment, Conner approved $1,213,970 in fraudulent loans.

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