Former Fugitive Pleads Guilty to Fraud Charges

LYNCHBURG, VA—A man who was a fugitive for more than a year pled guilty this morning in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Lynchburg to a variety of fraud charges.

James Gordon Fields, 47, whose last known address is unknown, pled guilty this morning to two counts of bank fraud, one count of making a false statement in relation to a loan, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of making a false statement under oath in relation to a bankruptcy case, and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000.

Today in District Court, Fields admitted to submitting forged signatures on guarantees for loans; submitting fraudulent documentation showing he was the beneficiary of a $77 million trust, which in fact did not exist; and lying about all of the above during his bankruptcy proceedings.

Fields admitted that he forged documents in September 2007 and March 2008 that caused Wachovia bank to issue more than $14 million in fraudulent loans. In addition, he admitted that at the time of his arrest, he removed a screen from a second story window and attempted to escape capture by United States Marshals. He was eventually apprehended two houses away.

At a sentencing hearing scheduled for July 2, 2013, Fields faces a maximum possible penalty of up to 30 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $1,000,000 on the bank fraud charges, a maximum possible penalty of up to 30 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $1,000,000 on the false statement charge, a mandatory two-year prison term on the aggravated identity theft charge, a maximum possible penalty of up to five years in prison and/or a fine of up to $250,000 on the bankruptcy charge, and a maximum possible penalty of up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $250,000 on the monetary transaction charge.

The investigation of the case was conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation, and the United States Marshals Service. Assistant United States Attorney Randy Ramseyer is prosecuting the case for the United States.