County IRS Agent, Ex-Banker Accused of Fraud

An Internal Revenue Service agent and a former bank president are accused of conspiring to arrange $134,000 in fraudulent personal loans to buy a house, sailboat and rental property, according to a criminal complaint.

Stanley E. Gardner, 55, the former president and chief executive of San Dieguito National Bank, has agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to defraud the Encinitas-based institution, Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen Clark said.

Gardner, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Banker Advocate of the Year in 1984, was named in a one-count complaint filed Friday by the U.S. attorney’s office.

A federal grand jury also indicted Bobbie Jack Tadlock, an IRS agent in Orange County, on eight counts of conspiracy, false statements on loan applications and misapplication of bank funds.

Prosecutors contend Gardner used his position at the bank to approve the phony loans between April, 1984, and May, 1985, in the names of Tadlock and another man, Leopold Salas, to purchase investment rental property in Dana Point, a 26-foot sailboat and to pay off a trust deed on Gardner’s home in Del Mar.

Gardner, a childhood friend and Whittier College fraternity brother of Tadlock, also allegedly laundered the loan proceeds through a series of other accounts at the northern San Diego County bank.

Salas, also a longtime friend of Gardner, had minimal involvement in the alleged scheme and cooperated early in the 3-year investigation by the FBI and IRS, Clark said.

Although the amount of money involved does not make it a major fraud case, Clark said it needs to be prosecuted vigorously because it concerns “the violation of the fiduciary duty by a senior bank official and . . . similarly the involvement of misconduct by an IRS employee.”

Tadlock, who examines records and handles audits for the IRS, is expected to surrender himself for arraignment this week. An IRS spokeswoman said the agency hasn’t taken any disciplinary action against Tadlock, 53, of Laguna Niguel, but an administrative review has begun.

“I think I’ll be vindicated in this whole thing. I think it’s all bank politics,” said Tadlock, who declined to discuss specifics about the case.

Gardner, who joined San Dieguito Bank as president in 1980 after holding similar positions with several other banks, resigned in 1985 after the bank’s auditors discovered the allegedly fraudulent loans.