Bank President’s Wife Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy in Scheme to Hide Assets
| U.S. Attorney’s Office May 17, 2011 |
TOPEKA, KS—A Jefferson County, Kansas, woman has pleaded guilty to conspiring with her husband to hide the money he stole from the bank where he was president, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today.
Brenda Schmitt Becker, 47, Meriden, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and agreed to forfeit her interest in property the couple owned in Jefferson County. In return, the government agreed to drop its claims on a 42-foot catamaran the couple purchased in hopes of leaving the United States.
Becker’s husband, Scott D. Becker, is serving a six-year federal sentence after being convicted of conspiracy. The crimes occurred while he was president and CEO of Countryside Bank, formerly Meriden State Bank.
In her plea, Brenda Schmitt Becker admitted that when Scott Becker learned the FBI was investigating him, he devised a scheme to make it appear he was indigent. She helped him to systematically liquidate, transfer, and conceal his assets in order to keep the government from taking them in the collection of fines, forfeitures, and restitution in the criminal case.
They conspired to obstruct justice and to commit perjury, wire fraud, and money laundering. They created a fictitious mortgage falsely claiming that she had loaned him more than $1 million. They sold more than $422,000 worth of property in Finney County, Kan.; liquidated a firearms collection for more than $425,000; and sold mineral rights in Finney County for more than $78,000. They purchased a 1997 Jeantot Marine 42-foot Privilege Catamaran yacht which they renamed “Pearls and Boots.” They purchased a corporation in Panama for the purpose of liquidating and transferring assets, and they formed a Nevada corporation, Mt. Bethel Enterprises, LLC, to act as a holding company where they could park real estate and personal property until it could be sold and the proceeds moved offshore.
Sentencing is set for Aug. 29. The parties have agreed to a sentence of 12 months and one day.
Grissom commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Hathaway, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Kenney for their work on the case.