DAVENPORT, Iowa — A former president of an Iowa bank out of Crawfordsville has pleaded guilty on May 9 to embezzling funds and obstruction of bank examination.
Russell Edwin Wagler, 52, of Wayland, is charged with creating “numerous straw loans involving existing customers at the bank” and taking the funds from those loans between December 2002 and March 2013. The bank lost nearly $426,000, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Additionally, Wagler received multiple unauthorized bonuses and increases in salary between January 2008 and October 2013, robbing the bank of another $200,964.
Wagler’s wife, Heidi Wagler, admitted to embezzling nearly $1 million in February. Heidi was an employee of Country Bancorporation and was in charge of doing payroll. Wagler was sentenced to serve more than three years and five months in federal prison, was fined $50,000, was ordered to pay $1,065,799 in restitution to Country Bancorporation, and was forced to pay a $100 special assessment fee.
Wagler will be sentenced September 19, 2016.
