Park Avenue Bank Closed - President Arrested

The Park Avenue Bank in Manhattan was closed by the New York State Banking Department on March 12th  and The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was appointed the receiver. The bank’s President Charles J. Antonucci was arrested on charges of bribery, wire fraud and embezzlement on the New York State Banking Department, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and The Trouble Asset Relief Program.

Charles J. Antonucci was President of The Park Avenue Bank from June of 2004 to October of 2009. The charges against him state that he engaged in several schemes to defraud the bank and bank regulators. The indict states that Mr. Antonucci was self dealing and used illegal payments and received benefits from bank customers in order for customers to receive inappropriate extensions on loans or loans to customers.

One method of misconduct involved a “round-trip” transaction that was designed to make regulators believe that Mr. Antonucci had invested over six million dollars into the bank thus improving the bank’s capital structure. The reality was that Mr. Antonucci was actually removing funds from the bank’s capital.

Mr. Antonucci also submitted an application for TARP or Trouble Asset Relief Program for the bank in which he provided fraudulent statements and committed mail fraud in 2008. He stated on the application for eleven million dollars in TARP funds that he was using six million five hundred thousand dollars of his earlier investment as basis for the application.

The Park Avenue Bank was privately owned and had a total of five hundred twenty one million dollars in total assets and four hundred ninety four million dollars in total deposits when it was seized.