A Chicago attorney who reportedly lied about the use of funds he obtained from the now-defunct Washington Federal Bank for Savings and falsely claimed a mortgage interest deduction related to the credit was sentenced Wednesday to four months in prison, a federal banking agency inspector general reported Thursday.
The IG at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), said that Patrick D. Thompson, 52, of Chicago, was convicted in February on all seven counts against him, including five counts of willfully filing a false income tax return and two counts of knowingly making a false statement to the FDIC.
The release, reproduced from one issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, said evidence presented at trial showed that Thompson from 2011 to 2014 received $219,000 from Chicago-based Washington Federal via a purported loan and other unsecured payments. Thompson reportedly only ever made one repayment on the loan and that he failed to pay interest on the funds he received. When the bank eventually failed and the FDIC, as successor in interest, sought to obtain repayment from Thompson in 2018, he falsely stated that he owed only $110,000 and that those funds were for home improvement. It says Thompson knew he had received $219,000 in three separate installments – none of which went towards home improvements – and that $110,000 of it was paid by the bank directly to Thompson’s law firm as Thompson’s capital contribution to the firm.
“The tax charges stemmed from Thompson falsely representing on five years of income taxes that he was entitled to a mortgage interest deduction for interest payments made on money he received from Washington Federal, even though he knew the loan was not a mortgage loan and he did not make interest payments as reported on those returns,” the release states.