Former CEO of Subprime Auto Lender Sentenced to Four Years in Prison in Connection With $67 Million Fraud Schemes

CHICAGO — The former Chief Executive Officer of a suburban Chicago subprime auto lending company has been sentenced to four years in federal prison for participating in a pair of fraud schemes that resulted in approximately $67 million in losses. 

JAMES COLLINS was the CEO of Evanston, Ill.-based Honor Finance LLC.  From 2015 to 2018, Collins schemed with others to submit false information to a bank that had provided a $200 million warehouse line of credit to the company to fund its subprime loan portfolio.  The false information allowed Collins to avoid posting additional collateral while maintaining funding from the line of credit that the company otherwise might have had to return to the bank.  The false information also increased the amount of funding he received from a trust established by Honor and the bank to securitize thousands of loans in Honor’s portfolio and sell them as bonds to investors.  Collins selected certain vehicle loans for the trust that he knew were delinquent and not eligible to be included in the portfolio because money had already been advanced to those borrowers through improper accounting entries.  Collins hid the ineligibility of these loans from the bank, bond investors, and rating agencies.  As a result of the false representations and omissions regarding the line of credit and the trust, the bank lost approximately $62 million.

Collins also engaged in a separate fraud scheme that involved the misappropriation of approximately $5.3 million from Honor. Collins and his co-schemers established a shell company called LHS Solutions that they used as a middleman between Honor and a third-party supplier of GPS devices.  Instead of Honor buying the devices directly from the supplier, as it had previously done, Collins had LHS Solutions purchase the devices before selling them to Honor Finance at inflated prices, with Collins and the co-schemers keeping and using the difference.  Collins also diverted commissions from the sales of vehicle warranties that should have gone to Honor.

Collins, 55, of Evanston, Ill., pleaded guilty in 2023 to a federal mail fraud charge and stipulated to bank fraud.  On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Franklin W. Valderrama imposed the prison sentence and ordered Collins to pay approximately $67 million in restitution.

The sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI.  Valuable assistance was provided by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Getter and Paige A. Nutini.

A co-defendant, Honor Finance’s former Chief Operating Officer ROBERT DIMEO, of Park Ridge, Ill., pleaded guilty in 2022 to a mail fraud charge.  DiMeo is awaiting sentencing.