Former Bank of O’Fallon leader gets prison sentence in fraud case

A former Bank of O’Fallon executive was sentenced Thursday to serve just over five years in federal prison after previously pleading guilty to charges of defrauding his employer of about $2 million through a check-kiting scheme and stealing nearly a half-million dollars from a Lebanon couple’s retirement savings.

Andrew P. Blassie, 70, of St. Louis, had served as executive vice president at Bank of O’Fallon, a business founded and operated by his wife’s family.

U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn ordered Blassie to serve five years and three months in prison and pay restitution of about $2.4 million, with $489,000 going to the Lebanon couple and about $1.97 million for the bank, according to court records.

Blassie, formerly of Shiloh, pleaded guilty on May 19 to one count of bank fraud and one count of interstate transportation of securities and money taken by fraud and theft, court records show. He was indicted in April.

Jordan Campanella, the defense attorney who represented Blassie in the sentencing hearing conducted in the federal courthouse in East St. Louis, could not be reached for comment.

“Blassie’s prison sentence underscores the severity of his crimes to betray his clients, employer, family and community,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft in a news release. “The outstanding work by the investigators and the Bank of O’Fallon’s vital cooperation to dismantle this scheme delivered justice and helped to protect the integrity of our financial system.”

Weinhoeft’s office had recommended a sentence of 63 to 78 months in prison.

Court records show that McGlynn recommended the federal Bureau of Prisons hold Blassie in a prison near the St. Louis metro area and that Blassie must report to prison as he is notified by the U.S. Marshals Service. The records did not list a time or place for Blassie to report.

The bank began an internal investigation of Blassie and contacted police in October 2024. Around that time, he disappeared, prompting his wife, Joanne Blassie, to report him as a missing person.

Police tracked Andrew Blassie down at a St. Louis hotel, where he attempted suicide by stabbing himself in the stomach and neck with a serrated knife, according to an O’Fallon police report. He later was admitted into a psychiatric unit at Mercy Hospital in St. Louis.

Authorities portray Blassie as a man who borrowed from wealthy friends to support extravagant spending habits, including a $200-per-day allowance for a favorite waitress who called him “sugar daddy,” and committed bank fraud out of desperation when his debts came due.

Russell Thoman Sr. was one of nine business partners who established Bank of O’Fallon in 1959. Blassie has been married to his daughter, the former Joanne Thoman, for 43 years.

Blassie’s brother-in-law, Richard Thoman, serves as bank president and two other brothers-in-law are involved in the business. The brothers and their two sisters control the majority of stock in Security First Bancshares Inc., the holding company that owns Bank of O’Fallon.

Joanne Blassie told investigators that her husband’s alleged criminal behavior may have begun with his sale of her stock shares to pay off a $4 million loan from a friend in St. Louis, according to an O’Fallon police report.

Blassie previously signed a stipulation of facts, admitting to the following:

• From Sept. 29, 2023, through Sept. 25, 2024, he devised and engaged in a scheme to defraud Bank of O’Fallon and obtain money, funds and property by false and fraudulent pretenses.
• He fraudulently inflated the balance of his personal checking account and used funds belonging to the bank to pay personal expenses and make payments to individuals.
• He deposited checks he knew to be backed by non-sufficient funds from a home-equity line of credit account at West Community Credit Union, an account at Bank of America in his name, an account at U.S. Bank in his wife’s name and a closed account at Wells Fargo in both names.
• He covered the overdrafts by continuing to deposit checks he knew to be backed by non-sufficient funds from these institutions in ever larger amounts to create the “false impression that there was a positive balance.”
• He used his position as executive vice president to conceal his fraud from the Bank of O’Fallon by regularly intercepting “kiting suspects reports” and removing his name and account number before providing them to other executives.
• On Sept. 13, 2024, he deposited a check for $1,965,000 into his Bank of O’Fallon account from his wife’s U.S. Bank account, knowing it was backed by non-sufficient funds.
• From August 2016 until September 2024, he defrauded and stole money from longtime customers at Bank of O’Fallon, D.T. and K.T., a married couple who live in Lebanon.
• He had persuaded the couple in 2016 to withdraw $489,000 of their retirement savings, which had been invested in certificates of deposit, and allow him to invest the money elsewhere, promising to pay 7% interest.
• As evidence of the investment, he gave the couple three promissory notes, stating that they were secured by 128 shares of Security First Bancshares stock, as well as copies of the stock certificates, most in his wife’s name.
• He made regular interest payments to the couple and, from October 2023 to September 2024, he did so with money he obtained from Bank of O’Fallon via the fraud scheme.
• On Aug. 19, 2022, he caused to be sold 1,748 of the stock shares, including those he had pledged to the couple as security, knowing that he was stealing property.
• He used proceeds of the stock sale to repay a $4 million loan he had obtained in October 2021 from a person in St. Louis to whom he had pledged the same Security First Bancshares stock.
• In September 2024, he stopped making interest payments to the Lebanon couple and told them that their principal was gone and the stock certificates he had pledged to them were worthless.
• On Aug. 25, 2022, he transported through interstate commerce three cashier’s checks drawn on Bank of O’Fallon for $4,557,792 and deposited them in a Sterling Bank branch in Clayton, Missouri.
• He used proceeds from the stock sale to fund a wire transfer of $4,089,801.12 payable to the person from whom he had borrowed money.