Former CEO to pay $50K CMP

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has issued a Consent Order against Steven R. Lewis, former chief executive officer and director or First Place Bank (now merged into Talmer Bank & Trust), Warren, Ohio. The OCC found (and Lewis neither admit nor denies) that:

• failed to ensure that the Bank properly identified and accounted for problem assets and Troubled Debt Restructurings, to accurately report its income and capital, and to ensure an adequate Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses balance.
• caused the Bank to file materially inaccurate Thrift Financial Reports (“TFRs”) for years 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011, and to incur substantial expenses to restate its financials and correct its misstated books and records.
• participated in restructuring a cash-out refinance mortgage loan to a troubled borrower of the Bank, who was a partner in Lewis’s outside business.
• used Bank resources for his own personal use.
• failed to timely disclose to the Board a $9.8 million judgment against him and a troubled borrower of the Bank.

For those reasons, the OCC asserted that Lewis "engaged in violations of 12 U.S.C. § 1464(v), and 12 C.F.R. §§ 562.2(b), 563.170(c), 563.200, engaged in reckless unsafe or unsound practices, and breached his fiduciary duty to the Bank; which violations, practices, or breaches were part of a pattern of misconduct, and caused loss to the Bank."

Lewis was ordered to pay a civil money penalty of $50,000, not to attempt to have the CMP obligation discharged in bankruptcy, and to take thirteen specific actions whenever he is "employed by, is offered employment at, or is otherwise affiliated with an insured depository institution … or otherwise becomes an institution-affiliated party."