Mission Viejo Mayor’s Son Sentenced for Check Kiting

The son of Mission Viejo Mayor William S. Craycraft has been sentenced to three months of home confinement and five years’ probation after pleading guilty to check-kiting in the Illinois city where he attends college.

William S. Craycraft Jr., a 19-year-old sophomore and honor student at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Ill., pleaded guilty in June to four counts of federal bank fraud. The sentence, delivered Monday, also orders Craycraft to perform 300 hours of community service.

Federal prosecutors said Craycraft ranked at the top of his Illinois College class last year but was stripped of his honors after his conviction. Craycraft’s lawyer confirmed that his client had been forced to return a prize given to him for academic excellence and had been placed on academic probation.

‘Learned His Lesson’

There was no answer at Craycraft’s Illinois residence Tuesday, but Mayor Craycraft said he believed that his son had “learned his lesson.”

“He’s a bright young man, and he’s got a tremendous future ahead of him,” the mayor said. “The sad thing about it is that he’s embarrassed.”

According to officials in the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield, Ill., the younger Craycraft illegally tried to obtain interest by writing checks to one bank account and three savings and loan institutions in Jacksonville. Craycraft opened accounts at the institutions with between $100 and $200, but he wrote checks totaling $94,926.50, prosecutors said.

“He opened four interest-bearing checking accounts, and he was writing bigger and bigger checks between them, trying to take advantage of the float,” said Patrick Kelley, an assistant U.S. attorney in Springfield. “That might work in a big city like L.A., but in Jacksonville, the banks start calling each other when something unusual is going on. That’s how we caught up with him.”

Craycraft’s scheme was uncovered before he had made any money off it, Kelley noted.

No Appeal Likely

His sentence began immediately; Craycraft will be confined to his grandparents’ home in Jacksonville for three months except to attend classes, work and perform his community service.

David Woodruff, a Jacksonville lawyer who defended Craycraft, said that no appeal was likely, given what he called a “most lenient sentence.”