Sunday, September 15, 1996

Former Plano Mayor Pleads Guilty In Loan Probe

By Associated Press

DALLAS (AP) - Former Plano Mayor Jack Harvard has pleaded guilty under a plea agreement with prosecutors in a federal probe into a series of bank loans totaling more than $25 million.

Harvard, 49, pleaded guilty Friday in Beaumont to one count of providing false information about a $3.18 million loan from the failed Plano Savings and Loan Association.

Harvard's attorney, Mike Gibson, cited two reasons for the plea agreement.

"First, he wanted to start to put this behind him for himself and for his family. Secondly, the specific charge we have pleaded guilty to are facts that Mr. Harvard acknowledges he did," Gibson said.

Harvard could be sentenced to up to two years in federal prison and fined as much as $250,000. However, his sentencing has been delayed as prosecutors wait to try David McCall Jr., another former Plano mayor charged in the same case.

McCall's trial has been moved from Sept. 23 in Shermam to Nov. 25 in Beaumont.

"Mr. Harvard's plea agreement calls for full cooperation in this case. Depending on the schedule of the trial, I can almost assure you no sentencing will be done before the trial ends," said Daryl Fields, spokesman for federal prosecutors in the federal Eastern District of Texas in Beaumont.

Plano, a northern suburb of Dallas, is located in the Eastern District.

Harvard already has been sentenced to seven years and fined $973,309 after his conviction last year of breaking federal banking laws while he was chairman of Willow Bend National Bank. He is appealing that conviction.

He and McCall were indicted in August 1995, along with three other men, on federal bank fraud charges relating to the loan probe.

The 11-count indictment accused the defendants of making a series of transactions intended to shift bad loans from one institution to another. Prosecutors say the scheme was intended to ease the repayment burden on borrowers and elude detection by bank examiners.