The former owner of a defunct Fayetteville leasing company has been charged with 12 federal felonies, including bank fraud against Bank of the Ozarks and First Security Bank.
Andrew Judkins, 41, of Bixby, Okla., was originally charged with three counts of defrauding First Security Bank by a grand jury in Fayetteville in September. That indictment was replaced on Dec. 11 by the 12-count indictment that also listed Bank of the Ozarks, GE Commercial Distribution Finance Corp. and Wells Fargo Equipment Finance Inc. as victims.
The charges remained under seal until Dec. 26, and U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge of the Western District of Arkansas announced the charges on Tuesday — the day after Judkins was arraigned.
According to the current indictment, Judkins routinely bought inventory for his A. Cmap Equipment LLC of Fayetteville using revolving lines of credit known as floor plan financing.
“Judkins did not repay the banks and the lending companies when he sold the equipment; rather, he misled the two banks and the two lending companies by giving them false equipment rental agreements causing the lenders to believe their collateral was not sold, but simply being rented out to a third party,” Eldredge said in a written statement. “Judkins then sold the equipment and kept the proceeds for his own personal use and benefit, such as putting a $200,000 down payment on a Beaver Lake house and buying a $47,000 collector’s automobile, among other personal expenditures, without repaying the banks and lending companies.”
The crimes were allegedly committed in 2008 and 2009. The indictment does not indicate exactly how much each lender lost.
Another Arkansas bank also had an ill-fated relationship with Judkins. Citizens Bank of Batesville loaned Judkins and A. Camp Equipment $1.04 million in February 2009, secured by a 3.8-acre development at 7720 Interstate 30 in Little Rock. The bank recovered the property at a $875,000 foreclosure sale in April 2011 after landing a $1.1 million judgment against Judkins and his business.
The full 19-page indictment can be downloaded here as a PDF.