Swindall-ing people must run in the family

Ya'll remember Pat Swindall, the right-wing Congressman from DeKalb who spent a year in Club Fed on six counts of perjury in the late '80s for lying about a conversation in which, according to Atlanta Unfiltered, "Swindall discussed the possible use of $850,000 in illegal drug proceeds to finance cost overruns in the construction of his Stone Mountain house." Pretty sleazy.

Well, looks like his younger brother, Phillip, is getting ready to top that with a possible 52-year stretch for bank fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Apparently, Phil, 50, opened a car dealership in 2004 with an $8.2 million bank loan, which was backed with collateral by a partner in Colorado.

We'll let the irascible Patrick Crosby of the U.S. Attorney's Office give the details:

By the summer of 2005, the bank’s auditors showed Swindall was more than $3.5 million in debt. Swindall claimed most of the debts were due to slow payments from a fleet customer. Ultimately, the auditors determined that the fleet customer had paid Swindall, but Swindall had not paid the bank. Swindall had in fact used the $3.5 million so he could operate another dealership, pay off his credit cards, live a high-end lifestyle for himself and his family including foreign vacations, household expenses and household employees. The losses to the Colorado business partner and the bank exceeded $3.5 million.

The second scheme began in 2009, when Swindall opened another dealership “Auto Tailor, Inc.” in Duluth. Over the next year, he purchased more than 30 cars from other dealers either on consignment or by sending the dealers insufficient fund checks. He then sold the cars to customers online through eBay. The evidence showed that Swindall pocketed over $490,000, and never provided the customers with titles to the cars, or paid the other dealers.

In yet a third fraud scheme, in August 2009, Swindall engaged in identity theft and used an employee’s name and other personal information to obtain a $175,000 loan from “Dealer Service Corporation,” as part of another business-related transaction designed to ultimately enrich Swindall.

That doesn't seem right. Anyway, Swindall was convicted in federal court yesterday, with sentencing scheduled for September. He faces a maximum sentence of 52 years in prison and a fine of up to $1.5 million. Ouch.