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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA southern Indiana man who defrauded Indiana banks of more than $10 million by supplying bogus financial information from family members to obtain multi-million-dollar loans for real estate, an airplane and a yacht will spend five years in federal prison.
Todd Van Natta of Seymour and Columbus also was ordered to pay almost $7 million in restitution after he pleaded guilty to 10 counts of bank fraud and two counts of tax fraud. U.S. District Judge William T. Lawrence of the Southern District of Indiana imposed sentence Thursday.
Van Natta was the president and manager of the Seymour-based Van Natta Asset Management, LLC, along with a variety of related companies, according to a statement from the office of Joe Hogsett, U.S. attorney for the Southern District. Van Natta’s company was involved in commercial and residential real estate projects, as well as the aviation business.
Van Natta was accused in July of devising a scheme to defraud financial institutions from 2007 to 2009, obtaining large sums of money by preparing and submitting numerous false documents to banks throughout central and southern Indiana, including local financial institutions headquartered in Bartholomew, Decatur, Washington, Morgan and Monroe counties.
The documents included tax returns and were used to obtain loans, including two loans of more than $3 million for property in Evansville and multiple parcels in Fort Wayne, as well as a $2.1 million bank note for properties in Seymour. He also got bogus six-figure loans to buy a 1970 Cessna Aircraft and a 2007 Fantasy yacht, according to Hogsett’s office.
Van Natta also defrauded a Utah resident of thousands of dollars by falsely claiming he owned an airplane listed for sale.
The government has moved to seize Van Natta’s assets gained by criminal activity. Senior litigation counsel Steven D. DeBrota and Assistant U.S. Attorney MaryAnn Mindrum prosecuted the case that resulted from an investigation that included the FBI and Internal Revenue Service.
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