- Key insight: The indictment names 16 federally insured banks as victims of a single borrower, from rural community banks in Oklahoma and Kansas to Texas Capital Bank and BOKF.
- What's at stake: Every loan in the case cleared underwriting on documents prosecutors say were fabricated, including trust accounts that did not exist and receivables belonging to a company that was not the borrower.
- Forward look: Johnson faces up to 30 years on each bank fraud count and up to 20 years on the wire fraud count, plus forfeiture of any property traceable to the offenses.
Overview bullets generated by AI with editorial review.
A federal grand jury in Dallas indicted a man Wednesday on charges that he borrowed more than $40 million from banks and private lenders over six years by inventing the assets he claimed to own.
From 2018 until at least July 2024, Garrett Douglas Johnson, 41, allegedly got loans using falsified documents, overstated revenue and concealed debts, then used the new loans to pay off the old ones, according to
Prosecutors put the losses at more than $20 million to banks and more than $4 million to individual lenders. Johnson faces five counts of bank fraud and one count of wire fraud.
The indictment names 16 banks as the institutions Johnson defrauded, from rural community banks in Oklahoma and Kansas to regionals such as
In loan applications he submitted three months apart, Johnson allegedly gave two of the banks the same invented trust balance: $8,713,378.24.
As of Friday morning, court records did not list a defense lawyer for Johnson. Attorneys who have represented him and his companies in civil matters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The scheme: phantom trust accounts and a loan pyramid
The indictment identifies Johnson as the manager, owner or partner of 10 business entities. Johnson applied for loans individually and through those entities.
His applications overstated his revenue, misstated how he would use the money and claimed he held millions of dollars in trust with a law firm, the indictment said. (Law firms hold client money in trust accounts separate from their own.)
The law-firm trust accounts at the center of the scheme "did not exist," according to
"In many instances new loans were used to pay off previously acquired fraudulent loans," the indictment said.
The five bank fraud counts against Johnson rest on five loans from four banks — a fraction of the borrowing the indictment describes.
Texas Capital Bank loaned his call-center company, American Select Partners, $1.5 million in August 2020 after Johnson claimed he had roughly $6.6 million in a law-firm trust account. He used the loaned money to pay off an earlier bank loan, according to the indictment.
Happy State Bank loaned Johnson's Oklahoma marina, Marina Del Rey, $9.23 million in December 2021, with $3 million of it earmarked for marina repairs. Johnson claimed a trust balance of about $6.2 million and spent about $3 million of the loan on oil and gas investments instead, the indictment said.
American National Bank & Trust extended the call-center company a $6.5 million revolving line of credit in April 2022 based on Johnson's claims that the company held more than $9 million in accounts receivable and the same $8.7 million in a law-firm trust account.
That December, the bank added a $1 million extension. Johnson drew the full amount and paid other loans with much of it, according to the indictment.
Gateway First Bank loaned another Johnson company $5 million for working capital in July 2022. Johnson again claimed that same trust balance, along with more than $9 million in receivables at his call-center company, according to the indictment.
The indictment does not say whether American National or Gateway First tried to confirm the balance before lending.
The single wire fraud count turns on a private lender the indictment identifies only as Individual A. That lender wired $2.5 million in December 2022 to Johnson, believing the money would buy out a partner's stake in Blue Duck Energy, a company Johnson co-owned.
That stake was not for sale, and Johnson spent the money on other things while hiding that he owed millions to other lenders, according to prosecutors.
The 16 banks
The indictment lists the following banks as victims:
- Simmons Bank, as successor to Landmark Bank
- Shamrock Bank
- Arvest Bank
- Watermark Bank
- Texas Capital Bank
- CrossFirst Bank, now Busey Bank
- Encore Bank
- Bank7
- Texas Republic Bank
- Happy State Bank, a division of Centennial Bank
- BancorpSouth, a division of Cadence Bank, now Huntington Bank
- American National Bank & Trust
- Gateway First Bank
- Haviland State Bank, now part of The Bank of Protection
- BOKF
- Blue Sky Bank
The indictment does not say how much any individual bank lost.
American Banker sent press inquiries to 12 of the banks; the other four do not publicly list any press contact.
A Simmons Bank spokesperson told American Banker that the bank "has not had an association with any of the companies in the indictment for more than five years."
A Texas Capital spokesperson declined to comment.
The other 10 banks contacted did not immediately respond.
Arvest suffered losses in
What Johnson faces
Johnson faces up to 30 years in federal prison on each bank fraud count and up to 20 years on the wire fraud count, along with forfeiture of any property traceable to the offenses. The docket does not show an arrest or an arraignment.
The alleged conduct "strikes at the integrity of our banking system and financial markets," Ryan Raybould, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in the press release.
The court record does not say how the scheme came to light. The indictment arrived about two years after the conduct ended.
