LINCOLN — Former University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert was sentenced Friday to five years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $654,000 restitution to First National Bank of Omaha in a bank fraud case.
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf also fined Hergert $75,000 and ordered him to spend six months under house arrest and to not open any new lines of credit without first obtaining permission from his probation officer.
Hergert, a Scottsbluff-area businessman, had agreed to the sentence when he pleaded guilty in March to a single charge of making a false statement to a bank.
He was indicted in 2009 on 18 felony charges that he submitted inflated values of his assets on bank documents relating to a $3 million line of credit for his business, Hergert Milling, Inc.
Had he not agreed to the sentence, Hergert could have been given up to 30 years in prison.
Supervised release is a form of probation used in federal court. His sentencing had been delayed several times because of a legal technicality with the wording of the proposed sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Russell told Kopf that the government negotiated a plea with Hergert because it would have been difficult to prove how much money the bank lost in the case.
Hergert's lawyer, Steve Achelpohl, said Hergert agreed to the plea to avoid jail time and because “he wanted to pay the money back to First National.”
The amount Hergert is to repay was determined in a settlement agreement with the bank. He must repay $50,000 per year, with the first payment due Feb. 15.
Hergert was removed from the Board of Regents in 2006 after being impeached for campaign finance violations.
Earlier this week, state lawmakers gave first-round approval to a proposal that makes it clear officeholders can be impeached for campaign finance violations that occurred before their election. The law arose from Hergert's case.
If Hergert had not submitted a campaign document after his election that was found to contain false statements, he might not have been impeached.
Hergert declined to speak to reporters following his sentencing.
Hergert gave up his state grain warehouse license in 2007 after officials discovered that his warehouses were missing 58,000 bushels of corn supposed to have been stored there for farmers.
Regulators shut down the warehouses and ordered him to pay farmers for the missing grain.
Contact the writer:
402-473-9581, leslie.reed@owh.com
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