Billie Jean Cherry, 82; guilty in bank failure that cost taxpayers $664 million
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Billie Jean Cherry, 82, a key figure in one of the most expensive U.S. bank failures since the Great Depression, died Dec. 29 at the University of Kentucky Hospital, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Prisons said.
Cherry, who had been diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage, had been serving a sentence of 16 years and five months at a federal prison camp in Lexington, Ky.
Cherry was chairwoman of the board for the First National Bank of Keystone when the West Virginia institution was declared insolvent by the Office of the Comptroller in 1999. The office cited “apparent fraud” when it closed the bank after it was unable to account for $515 million of its reported $1 billion in assets.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. had to pay out $664 million as a result of the bank’s collapse.
A native of Cutler, Ill., Cherry was convicted in 2001 of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit bank embezzlement and money laundering.
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