Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Former Wilm. Trust execs face new federal charges

Delaware Public Media

Four former high-ranking Wilmington Trust executives face federal fraud charges that they intentionally masked the extent of the bank’s troubled loans during the financial crisis.

The allegations came Wednesday in a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint filed in federal district court in Wilmington.

The complaint accuses former Wilmington Trust president Robert Harra Jr., former CFO David Gibson, former controller Kevyn Rakowski and former chief credit officer William North of fraudulently misleading investors concerning the extent of past-due, matured and extended loans in the bank's commercial loan portfolio. Specifically, it alleges the four of improperly excluding hundreds of millions of dollars of past due real estate loans from financial reports filed by Wilmington Trust in 2009 and 2010.

The Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office also announced yesterday that Rakowski and North have been indicted for allegedly making false statements to the SEC and Federal Reserve concerning the total quantity of past-due loans.

Wilmington Trust was sold to M&T Bank in 2010 after a series of bad real estate loans left the over 100 year old financial institution on the verge of closing down.

Tom Byrne has been a fixture covering news in Delaware for three decades. He joined Delaware Public Media in 2010 as our first news director and has guided the news team ever since. When he's not covering the news, he can be found reading history or pursuing his love of all things athletic.