Springfield man sentenced to 2 years for bank fraud

Photo courtesy Greene County Sheriff's Office

Shannon Fields pleaded guilty to the scheme late last year.

Springfield man Shannon Fields was sentenced to two years in federal prison for a bank fraud conspiracy.

Fields, 43, also was ordered to pay $21,279 in restitution to four banks that were victimized in the scheme, according to a news release from the office of Tim Garrison, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

When Fields pleaded guilty in November 2019, he admitted he worked with others to commit bank fraud between February and early May 2018. The co-conspirators stole mail from businesses and individuals to obtain checks and identifying information. They then created checks payable to themselves and used stolen IDs to make counterfeit identification to cash the checks.

Springfield Business Journal previously reported the banks were Bear State Bank, Central Bank of the Ozarks, Great Southern Bank and U.S. Bank.

Eleven unidentified co-conspirators were part of the scheme, according to the release. Many of the dozens of attempts to cash the checks were unsuccessful.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Mohlhenrich, and it was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Springfield and Joplin police departments.