Former bank vice president Richard Pigg has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for committing bank fraud and arson, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Pigg's crimes occurred between 2011 to 2016 during his tenure as vice president and loan officer for Community First Bank of the Heartland in Mount Vernon, Illinois.
In a complex fraudulent scheme, Pigg used his position to deceitfully gain over $600,000 from the bank. He used this to finance his investment properties and personal expenses, hiding his financial involvement from bank customers, whom he persuaded to purchase rental properties and secure mortgage loans.
Moreover, demonstrating a terrifying escalation in his fraudulent activities, Pigg inflated the amounts financed in these loans by several thousand dollars without the borrowers' consent, diverting the excess into his personal accounts. To erase traces of these misdeeds, Pigg resorted to arson, burning several properties, some repeatedly, to claim insurance benefits to offset his bank loans.
Pigg's actions were a gross misuse of his power and deeply betrayed the trust of the people who believed on him. His reckless endangerment of lives, including a first responder who was injured in one of the fires, underpins the gravity of his crimes.
Multiple federal agencies collaborated to expose Pigg's crimes, projecting the tenacity of law enforcement in upholding justice, as Special Agent in Charge Bernard Hansen stated, in this Department of Justice press release.
