ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Real-estate developer Vincent Garcia on Friday was sentenced to 27 months in prison for siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from member business loans obtained from First Financial CU and a Topeka, Kan., bank for personal use.
Garcia, 60, was ordered to pay $722,000 in restitution to the FDIC, which took a loss when it seized and sold the Kansas bank, and to First Financial CU, which lost millions of dollars in loans it made to Garcia and his companies.
Vincent Garcia, his son David Garcia, and their business partner, Derek Barnhill, were charged with bank fraud and money laundering in the use of $9 million in loans granted to build the $9-million Anasazi Downtown a nine-story condominium project. A federal grand jury indictment charges that as much as $2.5 million of the loan proceeds were used on items such as a private residence for David Garcia and an interest in a casino for Vince Garcia.
The Garcias obtained an $11-million construction loan from the now-defunct Columbian Bank and Trust Co., then $7 million from First Financial CU to pay for change orders at the project. Work on the project was stopped several months after federal regulators seized the Kansas bank, forcing the Garcias to obtain the second loan from the credit union.
The Garcias’ projects included Copper Square, a five-story downtown building, and Anasazi Downtown.
