Glen McInerney Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison After Pleading Guilty to Bank Fraud, Money Laundering, and Wire Fraud

GLEN MCINERNEY, age 42, a resident of Meraux, Louisiana, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo to 41 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite. MCINERNEY previously pled guilty to a four-count superseding bill of information charging him with two counts of bank fraud, one count of money laundering, and one count of wire fraud. MCINERNEY was also ordered to make restitution to the three victims of his crimes in the amount of $845,083.18.

According to court documents, MCINERNEY owned and operated GM Motors and Used Cars (“GM Motors”). MCINERNEY maintained a bank account for GM Motors at Regions Bank. Between May 2, 2009, and June 20, 2009, MCINERNEY wrote checks to straw payees to cash the checks and return the cash to him so that he could deposit portions of the proceeds back into the Regions account. MCINERNEY timed the cash deposits to occur prior to account debits, which lead to the straw payees cashing checks that he knew would ultimately bounce. In total, MCINERNEY wrote 288 such checks, resulting in a loss to Regions Bank of approximately $17,000.

Separately, between December 29, 2008, and January 7, 2009, MCINERNEY also defraudedGulf Coast Bank & Trust by negotiating six checks purportedly drawn on funds from a bank account at Twin City Federal National Bank in Minneapolis, Minnesota. MCINERNEY knew that the Twin City Federal National Bank account had been closed since July 30, 2007, that the account belonged to someone other than MCINERNEY, and which MCINERNEY did not have authority or control. These actions caused a loss to Gulf Coast Bank & Trust of approximately $28,083.18.

Finally, between January 3, 2007, and December 15, 2008, MCINERNEY defrauded an individual who had provided him with collateral for a short-term business loan by falsely representing that he had purchased used trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) that he intended to resell, when, in fact, he did not purchase such trailers in the first place. MCINERNEY’S fraudulent misrepresentations caused the individual who loaned him the money to suffer losses of approximately $800,000.

“Glen McInerney was sentenced today after pleading guilty to using “straw” payees to cash checks, committing bank fraud and laundering money to hide his part in illegal financial transactions,” stated Gabriel L. Grchan, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, New Orleans Field Office. “Money laundering is not a victimless crime. Not only are innocent people ‘duped’ by such schemes, but the underground, untaxed economy harms the entire nation’s economic strength. Special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation are committed to lending their expertise as the world’s premiere financial investigators to all crimes of greed.”