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BENTON, Ill. — A former vice president of a local bank has pleaded guilty in federal court to multiple counts of bank fraud and arson stemming from a scheme using his position to fraudulently obtain more than a half-million from Community First Bank of the Heartland.

Richard “Rick” B. Pigg, of Mt. Vernon, pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Benton, Illinois, to nine counts of an 11-count indictment accusing him of bank fraud and arson.

During that time, Pigg was Vice-President and Loan Officer at Community First Bank and fraudulently obtained more than $600,000 from the bank to purchase investment properties and pay personal expenses, such as his personal credit card, and his ex-wife’s.

As part of his scheme, Pigg asked multiple bank customers to purchase rental properties in their names but on his behalf, through mortgage loans financed at Community First, and that he would secure tenants, collect the rent and maintain the properties for them.

In court Friday, Pigg admitted to securing and approving six such loans and then increasing the loan amounts by thousands of dollars above the purchase prices of the rental properties without the loan customers’ knowledge. He then deposited the subsequent cashier’s checks for those loans into his personal bank account at People’s National Bank which was held with his mother.

He also admitted to setting fire to one of those properties in January and February 2016. According to court records, Counts Seven and Eight accused Pigg of twice setting fire to a rental home on Joliff Bridge Road in Centralia, but the first attempt was not sufficiently damaging so a second fire was set the following month that was more destructive. Insurance payments then allowed Pigg to pay off the mortgage loan at Community First.

After the first arson at the rental property in Centralia, Pigg set fire to a four-unit apartment complex in West Frankfort that was part of his scheme. That property was destroyed, and Pigg could pay off that mortgage with insurance funds.

He’s facing no more than 30 years in federal prison on each of the six counts of bank fraud and no more than 20 years each on the three counts of arson when he’s sentenced on August 17 in the Benton Federal Courthouse.