About the only piece of evidence the prosecution didn’t have in the murder case against 20-year-old Patrick Fluker was an eyewitness testifying that he was seen shooting 29-year-old Tiffany Mendez in the head.FORT WAYNE – A federal grand jury indicted a Fort Wayne auto dealer on a nine counts of bank fraud, accusing him of concocting a floor-plan scheme to take nearly $1 million from an Ohio bank.
On Thursday, the U.S. District Court grand jury indicted Stephen E. Schaadt, 55, of Fort Wayne. Schaadt owned and operated Quality Auto and had a $2 million floor-plan loan, used to finance vehicles to stock a showroom or lot, with First Financial Bank in Ohio.
Floor-plan loans allow auto dealers to obtain vehicles for sale – with the list of vehicles and the titles kept by the bank, according to court documents.
Using someone else’s password, Schaadt had access to a General Motors auction site, on which he would identify vehicles – obtaining descriptions and vehicle identification numbers, court documents say. He would then transmit that information in a request for funds to First Financial, making it appear as if he were buying the vehicle for sale.
But according to court documents, Schaadt never bought any of the vehicles on which he received advances from the bank, leaving the bank without any collateral to secure the loan. The bank suffered a loss of $954,456, according to court documents.
Some of the vehicles among the nine Schaadt identified are a 2008 Cadillac CTS, a 2008 Honda Accord and a 2006 Mercedes-Benz, according to court documents.
The case was investigated by an FBI task force including agents and Indiana State Police officers, according to the FBI.
In January, a Decatur man was indicted on similar charges. Harold Joseph “Joe” Klinker, 45, owned Trucks Unlimited and was accused of causing more than $300,000 in losses to First Merchants Bank. His case is pending in U.S. District Court.
