Peter Dahl, former CEO of Crown Bank, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he fraudulently used the bank's funds to pay personal debt and expenses and altered records to hide it, according to federal court documents.
Dahl, a son-in-law of Crown Bank founder Thomas Healey, was CEO of Crown Bank based in Minneapolis and Edina from 2000 to 2017. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing a false income tax return.
The charges are related to actions taken by Dahl from about 2002 to 2017 in which he conducted transactions for his own benefit without notifying the bank's board of directors and without proper notification to appropriate state and federal regulatory agencies.
"Dahl used his position at Crown and access to accounts at Crown to avoid paying creditors to whom he owed substantial sums," said U.S. District Court papers filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office. "In connection with many such transactions, Dahl understood that records would be created at Crown. On many occasions, Dahl made and caused to be made false entries in Crown's records, either because records were created in accounts that did not legitimately belong to Dahl … or because a false entry had to be made in a record to cause funds to be released for the benefit of Dahl."
Dahl also was accused of deceiving investors into believing there was a pending deal to acquire Crown Bank at a premium when there was no agreement with the bank in question.
Dahl, according to court papers, filed a false income tax return for 2016 by not disclosing $720,000 in income from transactions that were designed to look like loans or stock purchases but instead were going directly to Dahl. In his 2016 return, Dahl disclosed other income of $24,840, instead of a correct figure of $744,840. The false tax return resulted in a tax loss of approximately $285,200.
A sentencing date has yet to be determined. Dahl also could face a money judgment from the wire fraud count of $195,000 to $1.8 million.
