Banking regulators closed Park Avenue Bank and have accused the bank’s president of making “material and false statements” in the bank’s application for bailout money.

Details are a little sketchy, but it seems the bank’s ex-president is accused of pretending to have invested $6.5 million of his own money in the bank as a way to get other people “to encourage the FDIC to grant the bank’s TARP application.”

Antonucci,[the bank president], and others “repeatedly singled out Antonucci’s $6.5 million capital investment as evidence that the bank was viable and deserving of TARP funds,” it said.

Instead, the complaint said, the investment “was a sham, round-trip transaction using the bank’s own funds and was designed, at least in part, to deceive regulators about the bank’s capital position.”

The charges included self-dealing, bank bribery, embezzlement and fraud on the New York state banking department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and TARP, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.

Anyhow, if you had an account at this bank you now have an account at Valley National Bank, says the FDIC.

Failed Bank Information [FDIC]
Ex-NY bank president accused of defrauding TARP [Reuters]

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