TOPEKA, Kan. A local businessman on Thursday pleaded guilty to writing more than 5,000 insufficient funds checks in a check kiting scheme that defrauded Educational CU and two Topeka banks.
From May through August 2008, John Humpage exchanged and cross deposited more than 5,000 insufficient funds checks and created in excess of $78 million in aggregate deposit amounts. Those deposits falsely inflated his bank account balances by more than $600,000.
Humpage, 48, doing business under various names that included Humpco, Inc., Crescent Limousine, Yellow Cab of Topeka, and Wire and Glass Lease, LLC, generated artificially inflated account balances. The check kiting scheme utilized bank system “float” periods for purposes of creating artificially enhanced bank account balances.
