Defendant Also Fraudulently Diverted $245,000 in Loan Proceeds, Intended to Construct a Movie Theatre Restaurant, for His Personal Benefi
DALLAS - A Fort Worth man, Alton Alexis, appeared Friday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater and pleaded guilty to an Information charging one count of making a false statement under penalty of perjury, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.
Alexis, 58, faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. He will remain on bond pending sentencing, which is set for Sept. 2, 2016, before Judge Fitzwater.
According to documents filed in the case, in January 2010, Alexis, on behalf of borrower NSAA Investment Group, signed a promissory note with One World Bank for a loan of approximately $3,744,050 to finance the construction of a movie theatre restaurant. From early 2010 through early 2011, Alexis caused more than $2 million in loan proceeds to be disbursed from One World Bank to accounts in the name of BBA Construction Company and/or NSAA Investment Group. Alexis later submitted three fictitious invoices to One World Bank which caused at least $245,000 of those loan proceeds to be fraudulently diverted to bank accounts he controlled. Alexis then used these diverted loan proceeds to pay his personal debts.
In May 2011, Alexis made a material false statement in a bankruptcy case, In re Alton Alexis and Althea Lynette Alexis, filed in the Northern District of Texas, when he filed an Amended Statement of Financial Affairs that falsely represented he had truthfully disclosed all income received in the two years immediately preceding the commencement of the case. Instead of truthfully disclosing all income, Alexis fraudulently concealed the $245,000 of income, in the form of fraudulently diverted loan proceeds, he received in 2010.
This case is one of several felony prosecutions of bankruptcy-related crimes generated by the Bankruptcy Fraud Initiative in the Northern District of Texas. This defendant is the 12th defendant convicted since July 2014 as part of that initiative.
Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jarvis is in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
