A vice president from M&T Bank who admitted he defrauded the bank by creating bogus loans for customers of his choosing is going to prison for three years and three months.
Michael Whipple, 43, of Williamsville was sentenced Wednesday for financial institution fraud and ordered to pay $5.3 million in restitution on top of his prison sentence. When he is out of jail, he will have three years of supervised release.
Between 2008 and November 2013, Whipple created so-called “funding loans” by creating loans in the names of entities that were credit worthy or were made to seem credit worthy by Whipple. He would then give the proceeds of the loan to a customer of his choosing.
To get away with the scheme, Whipple forged signatures on loan documentation and had mail diverted to places other than the address of the entity the loan was opened under.
If the customer questioned the irregularities on their account, Whipple told them it was a bank error and the problem would be corrected. To correct the issue, Whipple opened other funding loans.
Whipple also had official checks drawn up to allow payments to be made on the funding loans in a further effort to avoid detection by the bank or the entities the loans were opened under.
By the time the scheme was discovered, Whipple had opened at least 12 funding loans, costing M&T Bank $5.3 million.
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