BILLINGS-Stephen Phillip Casher, a former Rocky Mountain Bank official, pleaded not guilty to multiple crimes in an alleged scheme to defraud the bank, U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme said today.
An indictment charges Casher, 45, of Billings, with two counts of bank fraud, one count of money laundering and one count of blackmail. The indictment is merely an accusation, and Casher is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Cavan presided and continued Casher’s release pending further proceedings.
If convicted of the most serious crime, Casher faces a maximum 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine and five years of supervised release.
The indictment alleges Casher, who was Rocky Mountain Bank’s market president, defrauded the bank in September 2014 by approving a bank loan to Larry “L.J." Price, for which Price was a guarantor, without disclosing the existence to the bank of other outside loans that Casher had arranged and was aware of. The indictment further alleges that Casher in February 2016 approved a bank loan to an entity controlled by Price without disclosing to the bank additional outside loans he and others had made to Price and without disclosing information concerning Price’s true net worth and cash liquidity.
The indictment also alleges Casher engaged in a monetary transaction that involved property derived from the bank fraud and that he demanded and received interest in real estate from an individual under a threat of informing about a violation of the law.
Pacer case reference. 19-65.
The progress of this may monitored through the U.S. District Court calendar and the PACER system. To establish a PACER account, which will allow you to review documents filed in the case, please go to, http://www.pacer.gov/register.html. To access the district court’s calendar, please go to https://ecf.mtd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/PublicCalendar.pl.
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Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
