Company Owner Sentenced To Lengthy Prison Sentence In Federal Bank Fraud Scam

BATON ROUGE, LA – Acting United States Attorney Corey Amundson announced today that CARL D. WRIGHT, age 48, of Central, Louisiana, was sentenced yesterday by Senior U.S. District Judge James J. Brady to a term of imprisonment of 72 months, following WRIGHT’S convictions for bank fraud and making false statements to financial institutions. Following his release from imprisonment, WRIGHT will be required to serve a three-year term of supervised release. WRIGHT was also ordered to pay restitution of $2,857,999, a special assessment of $500, and forfeit all property traceable to the proceeds of the scheme.

WRIGHT operated a company called Nevada Systems, Inc., which was in the business of renovating residential properties. From approximately August 2004 until November 2010, fraudulently obtained millions of dollars from numerous Baton Rouge-area financial institutions. His scheme included providing the financial institutions with a false social security number, concealing his prior felony convictions, fraudulently underreporting his liabilities by $2 million, and other materially false and fraudulent misrepresentations. As a result of his scheme, 12 financial institutions sustained losses totaling more than $2.8 million.

Acting U.S. Attorney Amundson stated: “Major financial fraud, such as the scheme in this case, must be and will be aggressively pursued by our office, along with our federal, state, and local partners. These schemes cause tremendous losses to businesses in our community and make it harder for honest businesspeople to succeed. I greatly appreciate the tremendous effort of the FBI and the prosecutors in bringing the defendant to justice.”

FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Jeffrey S. Sallet stated: “Motivated by greed, the defendant orchestrated a sophisticated scheme which left his victims holding the bag on $2.8 million in losses. I want to commend the efforts of the assigned prosecutors and agents who worked tirelessly on this case to unravel the defendant’s web of deceit. The New Orleans Division of the FBI will continue to work together with its local, state and federal partners to hold accountable those fraudsters who attempt to fraudulently game our nation’s banking system for their own financial gain.”

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys J. Brady Casey and Peter Smyczek.