Steve Standridge
HOT SPRINGS – Steven Alan Standridge, the former Mount Ida real estate agent who pleaded guilty in July to two felonies, was sentenced Friday to 60 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release and $7.1 million in restitution.
Standridge, 58, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey in Hot Springs in accordance with a plea agreement struck with fedral prosecutors. Hickey was not bound by the agreement, but she said she went along with the 60-month term because she said the sentence was appropriate.
She ordered him to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons on Jan. 14, and she said she would recommend that he be incarcerated at the federal correctional institution in Texarkana, Texas.
Under the terms of the plea deal, federal prosecutors would not oppose a request for a shorter sentence if Standridge had been able to pay at least 80 percent of the restitution before being sentenced, but he was not able to do that.
On Thursday, defense attorney Tim Dudley of Little Rock attempted to get Friday’s sentencing delayed because Standridge was working on deals that might have helped raise the money by March. Hickey said she didn’t entertain the motion because Standridge had not even made a “token” payment to his victims. Standridge told the judge that he didn’t realize he could have made partial payments.
A grand jury in the Eastern District, where Christopher Thyer is U.S. Attorney, indicted Standridge on 12 counts in August 2012. He pleaded guilty to one count of it: money laundering related to the misappropriation of a $350,000 premium finance loan that he arranged with the Bank of Delight.
Standridge also pleaded guilty to one of the 23 counts included in an indictment issued last October by a federal grand jury in the Western District, where Conner Eldridge is the U.S. Attorney.
Specifically, Standridge admitted lying in an email used to persuade Don Gigerich, president of Gigerich Electrical Inc. of Hot Springs, to lend him $2.7 million.
The victims to whom the restitution will be paid are Gigerich Electrical, $2.7 million; Chambers Bank of Danville, $2.9 million; Travelers Insurance Co., $1.37 million; and the Bank of Delight, $122,400.
Standridge was president of Steve Standridge Insurance Inc. of Mount Ida, which he shut down in 2010 after the Arkansas Insurance Department said he falsified collateral used to purchase Gibraltar National Insurance Co. of Little Rock in 2009 and defaulted on a premium finance loan that had been misrepresented to the lender.
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