President of Former Suburban Car Dealership Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison for Defrauding Customers and Lenders

CHICAGO—The president of a former west suburban auto dealership was sentenced to nine years in federal prison for engaging in a fraud scheme in which he, together with the dealership’s owner and another employee, caused lending institutions, car dealerships and customers to lose more than $2.4 million in transactions involving more than 100 vehicles. Glenn Stancil, once president of the former Clover Financial Sales & Leasing, Inc., in Roselle, was sentenced late yesterday on 11 counts of mail and wire fraud after a jury convicted him at a trial in January in U.S. District Court, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced today.

Stancil, 39, of Crystal Lake and formerly Lake in the Hills, who ran Clover’s used car department, was ordered to begin serving his sentence on Nov. 8 by U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo. The judge ruled that Stancil and two co-defendants intended a loss of just over $3 million, and ordered restitution of $2,434,782, representing the actual current loss to victims, as well as forfeiture of more than $2.1 million. Judge Bucklo found that Stancil was a leader in an extensive fraud scheme and also ruled that he lied while testifying in his own defense at trial.

In June, Judge Bucklo ordered the same amount of restitution and forfeiture against Clover’s former owner, Patrick McManamon, who she sentenced to 85 months in prison. McManamon, 50, formerly of Elk Grove Village, pleaded guilty in November 2010 to the same 11 fraud counts. A third co-defendant, Pamela Mendyk, 36, of Lake in the Hills, who worked in Clover’s finance department, entered a pre-trial diversion agreement with the government, which provides that the fraud charges against her will be dismissed if she successfully completes a year of probation. She testified as a government witness at Stancil’s trial.

According to court documents and the evidence at trial, McManamon and Stancil persuaded customers to transfer to Clover vehicles that they owned or leased, by falsely representing that Clover would pay off the customers’ loans or leases on those vehicles. McManamon and Stancil then sold or leased these vehicles to other customers, falsely representing that Clover had good title to the vehicles. McManamon, Stancil, and Mendyk arranged for lending institutions to finance the purchase and lease of vehicles from Clover by falsely representing that Clover had paid off prior loans and leases on those vehicles.

Between March 2005 and December 2006, McManamon, Stancil, and Mendyk caused at least 127 vehicles to be transferred to Clover based on false representations, failed to pay off the loans and leases on those vehicles, and caused losses to Clover’s lenders and customers of more than $2.4 million.

The defendants induced lenders to finance customers’ purchases and leases of the fraudulently-obtained vehicles from Clover by providing the lenders with fraudulent documents, including altered titles and checks falsely purporting to represent pay-offs of outstanding loans and leases. When customers who bought vehicles from Clover had trouble obtaining valid license plates and car registrations, the defendants falsely represented that the Illinois Secretary of State was behind in processing and issuing titles, and that Clover’s transactions were processed more slowly because it was not a large dealership.

The Illinois Secretary of State Police and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office assisted in the investigation. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Felicia Manno Alesia and Barry Jonas.