(CHICAGO) Two former board members of a failed Wilmette bank have pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal government of millions of dollars.
Zulfikar Esmail, 73, and his wife Shamim Esmail, 68, each pleaded guilty to one count of financial institution fraud of more than $100,000 and an amended count of theft of more than $100,000 from the U.S. treasury department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office.
Zulfikar Esmail was sentenced to five years in the Illinois Department of Corrections while Shamim Esmail was sentenced to two years of probation and 250 hours of community service, prosecutors said.
The Esmails were charged in 2013, along with two other former Premier Bank board members, with a scheme to defraud the treasury department’s TARP program of $6.8 million, prosecutors said. The board members were accused of hiding the poor financial condition of the bank from state regulators from 2006 until the bank’s failure on March 23, 2012. The bank’s failure cost the FDIC $64.1 million.
“This couple fraudulently secured TARP funds at a time when the country’s economy and its major financial institutions were on the brink of disaster,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in the statement. “Their illegal scheme ultimately resulted in the failure of a bank at a great cost to the bank’s customers and American taxpayers.”
