OKLAHOMA CITY – A former bank executive from Lawton admitted defrauding his employer of more than a million dollars “to support my gambling addiction.”
John Baptist Padilla, 44, previously was a senior vice president and commercial loan officer for BancFirst in Lawton, records reflect. His delegated loan authority was $350,000, “providing him authority to approve any loans” below that amount, the federal charge relates.
Between February 2013 and December 2019, Padilla recruited borrowers to apply for loans. Many of those borrowers “were not creditworthy and were in fact Padilla’s friends and associates,” the federal complaint charges. Padilla “often waived the credit report for those borrowers,” investigators discovered.
He told borrowers he would use the loan proceeds to invest in his real estate ventures and that he would pay the borrowers a percentage of the profit. Padilla “also assured these borrowers that he would make all the payments toward the outstanding balance on each loan.”
In a process similar to a Ponzi scheme, Padilla “often used loan proceeds from unauthorized loans he had approved to make payments toward earlier unauthorized loans he had approved, thus enabling the scheme to continue undetected” for almost seven years.
The fraud cost the bank $1,092,135, prosecutors alleged. For example, in early 2020 the bank charged off $58,002 from one loan on which no payments were ever made, records showed.
Padilla was charged May 7 with bank fraud and pleaded guilty on June 17. At sentencing he faces up to 30 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $1 million. In addition, as part of the plea agreement, “the court must order payment of restitution” to the bank.
U.S. District Judge Jodi W. Dishman released Padilla from custody on an unsecured $5,000 bond pending sentencing and ordered him to refrain from gambling.
The case resulted from an investigation by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.