Meet Dave Spence: The Missouri Candidate For Governor Who Won't Pay Back His Bank's $40 Million TARP Bailout
Where do they find these idiots, honestly.
Spence is the GOP candidate for Governor in Missouri.
Instead of repaying Reliance Bank's $40 million TARP bailout, Spence doled out $40 million in insider loans to board members, including $1.1 million for a vacation home for himself and a cool $600,000 for his plastics company.
Nice work if you can get it.
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The Facts:
- For six years, Dave Spence helped run Reliance Bancshares and its main subsidiary, which took $40 million as part of the Wall Street bailout.
- Spence supported the Wall Street bailout, which he defended as an "extra cushion of capital" to banks like his.
- Shortly after Reliance received its $40 million TARP bailout, Spence took a million-dollar insider loan from the bank for a vacation house.
- Spence then voted not to repay taxpayers their money and quit the bank, leaving taxpayers with a $40 million tab.
- During Spence's time with Reliance Bancshares, federal regulators repeatedly reprimanded the bank and its subsidiaries for making bad loans and engaging in risky business practices.
- Even after the bailout, Spence and his fellow board members approved lavish pay packages for the bank's executives as well as perks, such as country club memberships.
- Spence's bank was named the worst-performing bank in the St. Louis region.
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Jefferson City, Mo. - Just days after Dave Spence was forced to admit he voted not to repay taxpayers the $40 million bailout his bank got from Washington, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported today that Spence's bank actually gave $40 million in insider loans to board members and executives instead. After the bank received the TARP bailout, Spence himself received millions in loans to purchase a vacation home and expand his business.
According to an editorial in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Mr. Spence and the rest of the board voted in early 2011 not to repay the $40 million in TARP money to the federal government. This was after the bank voted in 2009 and 2010 to approve loans, in approximately the same amount, to bank board members and executives. Mr. Spence received some of these loans, one for a vacation house at Lake of the Ozarks." [Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4/5/2012]
In February 2009, Reliance Bank received $40 million from the U.S. Treasury under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP.
According to public records, in 2009, Reliance Bancshares made $18,979,559 in new loans to executive officers and directors. In 2010, Reliance Bank made $21,041,439 in new loans to executive officers and directors. (Reliance Bancshares, Form 10-K/A, 03/16/11; Reliance Bancshares, Form 10-K, 03/30/11)
Of that, Spence took out an equity loan on his home in St. Louis, took a $1.1 million mortgage on a vacation home at the Lake of the Ozarks and took a $600,000 loan for his company. [Associated Press; Camden County Property Records]
Sources:
http://www.paybackthebailout.com/
http://www.spencesbankbailout.com/
Sep 15, 2012 at 12:26 PM
Reader Comments (11)
This is endemic of our corrupted system. Offering up brain-dead bailout desperados to lead us out of our debt nightmare. Somehow, I'm not surprised by this.
Spence wasn't given that option and said fuck TARP with complete impunity.
Catherine Austin Fitts-They’re Going to Depopulate or Bankrupt the Rest of Us
http://usawatchdog.com/catherine-austin-fitts-theyre-going-to-depopulate-or-bankrupt-the-rest-of-us/
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-bailout-by-the-actual-numbers
While rejecting AIG's claim that the case should have been arbitrated, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday said AXA waited too long to sue -- more than five years after being put on notice that something might be amiss. It directed a lower court to enter a judgment in favor of AIG.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/23/us-aig-axa-idUSTRE67M3RS20100823
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/09/05/owners-lose-possessions-after-home-near-twentynine-palms-is-mistakenly-foreclosed/
Nice link. By foreclosing on a house that had no mortgage, Wells Fargo and its agents had to have committed multiple crimes that culminated in fraud on the court. With these crimes, which will go unpunished like they always do when perpetrated by people who steal for a living, Wells Fargo joins Bank of America in foreclosing on people who didn't have any mortgages at all.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/06/bank-america-pays-florida-couple-in-mistaken-foreclosure-case (Florida)
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bank-america-sued-foreclosing-wrong-homes/story?id=9637897 (Massachusetts)
But, according to the Empty Chair and his gelding law enforcer, Placeholder, it is legally impossible for a Wall Street banker to commit crimes, which are deemed instead "unethical behavior." I wonder if Empty would describe a row of disemboweled bankers swinging from lamp posts as unethical.