Ex-CEO of Greenbush, Minnesota Bank Receives Prison Sentence

GREENBUSH, MN (trfnews.i234.me) A former bank CEO in Greenbush, Minnesota has been sentenced to 18-months in prison.
former bank ceo robert hager of green bush has been sentenced to prison charged with falsifying records and misappropriating over 1.6 million dollars acton united states attorney w anders folk announced on march 2nd the sentencing of robert john hager age 70 a former bank ceo to 18 months in prison for making a false entry in bank records hager who plotted who pled guilty on may 18th of 2020 was sentenced this week by judge patrick j schultz in u.s district court according to the defendant’s guilty plea and documents filed with the court hager was the ceo of border state bank border and served as a director of the bank’s holding company border bank shares incorporated hager also held various executive positions in banks that border bank shares inc acquired including the former first state bank of clearbrook and the former first advantage bank in late 2015 and early 2016 hager loaned money to a bank customer to invest in a diamond and gold venture in liberia ghana and kenya that promised a quick return after he depleted his own personal funds on the investment and maxed out the amount he could borrow from the bank hager asked other individuals including bank customers shareholders and directors of the bank to lend him money which would enable hager to recover his personal funds according to the defendant’s guilty plea and documents filed with the court between 2016 and 2017 hager requested a series of loans by having border bank customers take out loans in their own names or draw from loans they already had and then transfer the funds to hagar in may 2016 hager issued three unauthorized standby letters of credit worth 1.6 million dollars to facilitate the purchase and delivery of diamonds and gold from africa in each instance hager issued the sblc on the letterhead of first advantage bank and signed the letter as ceo of first advantage letters of credit are considered obligations of a bank and they can impact a bank’s financial standing such obligations must be entered into the bank’s general ledger so that they can be accounted for and tracked by regulators in order to conceal those actions hager failed to report the splcs to bank personnel so that they could be logged into the bank system this case was the result of an investigation conducted by the office of the inspector general for the federal reserve board and the office of inspector general for the federal deposit insurance incorporation and the fbi the case was prosecuted by assistant u.s attorney amber m brennan i’m Neil Berg reporting for pageonepublications.com