A former Troubled Asset Relief Program recipient has been indicted and charged with 30 counts of bank fraud and 30 counts of money laundering.
Matthew Sweet, the former vice president and controller of One Bank & Trust (Onebanc) until February 2012, allegedly abused his position at the bank to steal approximately $75,000.
Sweet supposedly obtained 30 cashier’s checks from January 2009 to October 2011 by using his position at the Little Rock, Ark.-based financial institution to sign these checks drawn on a Onebanc clearing account, the indictment says. He then mailed the cashier’s checks to two credit card companies to pay for his personal credit card bills.
When confronted Onebanc management, Sweet admitted his actions. Sweet paid back the amount he had stolen with two cashier’s checks from another bank. One check was for $9,662 given to Onebanc, while the other was for $101,003 payable to Layton Stuart, the former president and CEO of Onebanc.
TARP records show that One Financial Corporation, the parent company of One Bank & Trust, received $17.3 million in federal taxpayer funds. To date, these funds remain outstanding, TARP says.
“TARP was designed to provide support to our nation’s banks and financial system during a time of crisis, not to provide a personal bailout for bank insiders to support their spending habits,” said Christy Romero, special inspector general for TARP.
Sweet is scheduled for trial on Dec. 9. The maximum sentence for bank fraud is 30 years imprisonment and a $1 million fine, while he is also facing 20 years in jail and a $500,000 fine for the money laundering charges.
