This story appeared in Bank Digest.
New York businessman Selim "Sam" Zherka has pleaded guilty to conspiring to make false statements to a bank in order to receive millions of dollars in loans and to filing materially false tax returns with the IRS, according to a SIGTARP release. As part of his plea agreement, Zherka agreed to forfeit $5.23 million.
SIGTARP said that from December 2005 through the present, Zherka conspired with others to obtain $63.5 million in loans from TARP-recipient Sovereign Bank (now Santander) for the purchase and/or refinancing of apartment house complexes in Tennessee by lying about the purchase price of the real estate he was acquiring and the amount of the down payment he was making toward the purchase in question.