Chicago-Area Developer Gets Almost 13 Years In Prison For Embezzling Millions From Failed Bank
A federal judge sentenced a real estate developer to almost 13 years in prison for his role in conspiring to embezzle millions over more than a decade from the failed Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Bridgeport.
Park Ridge native Marek Matczuk, received the sentence Monday after being found guilty of illegally pocketing almost $6M from the shuttered bank, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The judge also ordered Matczuk to pay close to $6M in restitution to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which still aims to recover $90M lost in the failure of the bank. Matczuk was among its delinquent mortgage customers.
“The amount of loss in this bank collapse is staggering,” U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall said, according to the Sun-Times.
Matczuk, alongside Miroslaw Krejza, was convicted last September of conspiring to commit embezzlement and falsify bank records, as well as aiding and abetting embezzlement by bank employees.
The conspirators disguised the embezzled money as purported real estate development loan disbursements made to Krejza, Matczuk and others, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The recipients were't made to repay the loans, and they didn't, according to a release.
The late John F. Gembara, the CEO and majority shareholder of Washington Federal, directed the bank to give Matczuk the money between 2007 and 2017. Gembara died by suicide in the main bedroom of Matczuk’s home on Dec. 3, 2017.
“The evidence at trial showed you had daily contact at the bank with Mr. Gembara. Whatever Mr. Gembara wanted, you would do to make him happy,” Kendall said, according to the Sun-Times. “You were benefiting from it. It enabled you to go to the casino. It enabled you to go on vacations.
“Sadly, at the end of his life, he chose to be by the person he trusted the most, which is you.”
In addition to using embezzled money for personal expenses, Matczuk used some of it to pay Gembara's bills, according to court testimony, which also revealed Gembara had enlisted Matczuk as a driver, handyman and bodyguard.
Federal regulators shut down the bank 12 days after Gembara's death when the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency determined the bank was insolvent and had at least $66M in nonperforming loans.
The federal investigation into the bank’s collapse led to criminal charges against 16 defendants. Juries convicted Krejza, Matczuk and two others, while 10 defendants pleaded guilty and two reached deferred prosecution agreements.
The judge gave Matczuk the second-longest prison sentence in the bank collapse, behind Robert M. Kowalski, a lawyer and contractor who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for embezzling $7.2M.
