A former executive vice president of the Bank of O’Fallon will spend 63 months in prison after admitting that he engaged in a fraud scheme to obtain more than $2 million.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Illinois, Andrew P. Blassie of St. Louis pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of interstate transportation of security or funds obtained by fraud.
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In addition to the prison term, the district judge also ordered the 70-year-old to pay $2,461,887.67 in restitution.
The indictment says that Blassie defrauded the Bank of O’Fallon $1,972,887.67 through a check kite scheme that he carried out from September 2023 through September 2024 during his employment.
Check kiting is a type of fraud that involves writing checks between bank accounts that do not have sufficient funds. Perpetrators exploit the clearing period to create artificial balances and use funds that do not actually exist.
Blassie admitted to falsely inflating the balance of his personal checking account using checks backed by accounts that had insufficient funds. He deposited these checks from four personal accounts at three other banks and one credit union into his Bank of O’Fallon account.
He then used the falsely inflated account to pay nearly $2.7 million in personal expenses, taking advantage of his position to conceal the fraudulent acts by scrubbing his name and account number from suspected kiting reports.
The bank’s former executive also persuaded a couple from Lebanon, Illinois, to give him $489,000 of their retirement savings in exchange for two promissory notes and a pledge to pay interest. He initially used funds that he obtained through his check kite scheme to pay some of the interest, but he eventually defaulted on his obligation.
Says Special Agent in Charge Vincent R. Zehme, of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General (FDIC OIG), Chicago Region,
“Today’s sentencing brings justice to the defendant, who violated his position of trust as Executive Vice President at the Bank of O’Fallon. He defrauded the bank of approximately $2 million through a check kiting scheme that he used to enrich himself.”
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