James Stevens, a former Primis employee, is facing a sentence of up to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to bank fraud.
The 46-year-old man from Weems worked for the bank from 2002 to 2023, although, over that period, the bank was sold several times and operated under different names.
According Stevens’ own admission in federal court documents, from about 2008 up until his departure from Primis in 2023, he was exploiting his position to get money for himself, for others, and to pay fraudulent loans he was making at the bank.
Stevens last position at the bank was as commericial lender. His “primary method” of fraud was issuing loans in other people’s names, the court documents state.
For example, he admitted that he originated at least $530,000 in loans in the name of a gambler who wasn’t creditworthy by Primis standards. The gambler repeatedly lost money Stevens supplied on bad bets, but Stevens helped him stay current on the loan payments by issuing new loans.
When the gambler got arrested for a violent crime in 2011, he had about $300,000 of loans outstanding. Stevens issued a renewal loan using false documents.
And after the man was convicted later that year and was serving his sentence, Stevens took out about $530,000 more loans in the man’s name without him knowing, court documents show.
Although some individuals were complicit in Stevens schemes, not all were, he admitted. Stevens acknowledged that he used the personal documents of a Primis accountholder referred to as M.T. to generate $950,000 of loans without M.T. knowing.
Stevens also used the information of J.W. a Primis accountholder he had “a personal relationship” with to secretly issue about $600,000 in loans and Stevens withdrew over $97,000 of J.W.’s money from checking and savings accounts.
Stevens’ long-running fraud was exposed because he was hospitalized in 2023 and couldn’t maintain the schemes to cover the loan payments.
Court documents show that when Primis discovered the issue, Stevens had around $2.2 million in outstanding loans, excluding interest.
In addition to the losses from loans, Primis repaid J.W. $97,000 with an additional $4,589 for interest.
The fraud and theft resulted in a total loss to Primis Bank of $2,477,643, court documents show.
Stevens is set to be sentenced on May 30.
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