CMP ordered for lender fraud

Christopher Watkins, former vice-president and senior loan officer for Central State Bank, (now known as CBI Bank & Trust), Muscatine, Iowa (the Bank), has been issued a consent order to cease and desist and to pay a $37,500 civil money penalty by the Federal Reserve Board. The Board has found that Watkins, while employed by the bank, engaged in unsafe or unsound banking practices in connection with the Bank’s administration of commercial agriculture loans from 2009 to 2010, including, by representing past due loans as current to obtain loan committee approval of renewals or extensions of those loans and failing to apply loan proceeds appropriately in contravention of the Bank’s loan policy. Watkins, who was terminated by the Bank but was later employed by another depository institution, was ordered to immediately provide the CEO and directors of any depository institution for which he is or becomes an institution-affiliated party a copy of the Order, and to refrain from any further violations of law or breaches of fiduciary duties.