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Chicago Attorney Charged With False Statement and Tax Offenses in Connection With Funds Received From Failed Chicago Bank

Publication date: 
Thursday, April 29, 2021

CHICAGO — A Chicago attorney was indicted today on false statement and tax charges in connection with funds he received from Washington Federal Bank for Savings.

PATRICK D. THOMPSON, 51, is charged with five counts of willfully filing a false income tax return and two counts of knowingly making a false statement to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to an indictment returned in U.S. District in Chicago.  Arraignment has not yet been scheduled.

The indictment was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Jay N. Lerner, Inspector General of the FDIC’s Office of Inspector General; Tamera Cantu, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago; Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; Catherine Huber, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Central Region of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Office of Inspector General; Sally Luttrell, Assistant Inspector for Investigations of the Department of the Treasury, Office of Inspector General; Joseph M. Ferguson, City of Chicago Inspector General; and Kathryn B. Richards, Chicago Housing Authority Inspector General.  The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brian Netols, Michelle Petersen, Jeremy Daniel, and Nicholas Eichenseer.

According to the charges, Thompson from 2011 to 2014 received $219,000 from Chicago-based Washington Federal via a purported loan and other unsecured payments.  He made one re-payment on the loan but then stopped making payments, and he failed to pay interest on the funds he received, the indictment states.  Washington Federal was shut down in 2017 after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency determined it was insolvent and had at least $66 million in nonperforming loans.  When the FDIC, as successor in interest to Washington Federal, attempted to obtain repayment from Thompson in 2018, he falsely stated that he owed only $110,000 and that those funds were for home improvement, when Thompson knew he had actually received $219,000 and that $110,000 of it was paid by the bank to a law firm as Thompson’s capital contribution, the indictment states.

The tax charges accuse Thompson of falsely representing on five years of income taxes that he paid interest on money he received from Washington Federal, even though he knew he did not pay interest in the amounts reported on the returns.

Ten other defendants, including several high-ranking former bank employees, were previously charged as part of the ongoing federal criminal investigation into the failure of Washington Federal.

The public is reminded that an indictment is not evidence of guilt.  The defendant is presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Each false statement count is punishable by a maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison, while each tax count is punishable by up to three years.  If convicted, the Court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.

Additional Details
URL
Component
USAO - Illinois, Northern;Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI);
OIG
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation OIG