Former Billings car dealer sentenced for bank fraud

A 65-year-old former used car dealer in Billings who pleaded guilty to bank fraud has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison and must pay $358,384 in restitution. Jerome Garsjo said in federal court Thursday that he didn't think he was a criminal because at the time he didn't think what he was doing was illegal. Garsjo pleaded guilty in August to bank fraud for lying on invoices and inflating values of vehicles to get more money from Little Horn State Bank, which gave him a line of credit. The scheme ran from December 2006 until June 2007. The bank gave Garsjo a $600,000 line of credit to finance the purchase of vehicles for his inventory. Garsjo gave the bank fraudulent invoices that inflated the price he paid for the vehicles. Posted in: Internal Fraud