CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa hog farmer who admitted defrauding a bank out of millions of dollars has been given eight years in a federal prison.
Prosecutors say 59-year-old David LeClere, of Coggon, had pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. He was sentenced on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids.
He must serve five years of supervised release when he leaves prison, and he was ordered to make restitution of nearly $8.3 million.
LeClere acknowledged that in order to borrow more money he gave Farmers State Bank in Marion falsely inflated information about the number and weight of his hogs and the amount of money that packing plants owed him. He admitted illegally cashed checks more than once using a remote deposit scanning machine he'd gotten from the bank.