Key figure in Bridgeport bank scandal gets nearly 13 years for embezzling $6 million

Seven years ago, a crooked Bridgeport bank president was found dead with a rope wrapped around his neck in the Park Ridge bedroom of his “right hand man.”

On Monday, a federal judge sentenced John F. Gembara’s “right hand man,” Marek Matczuk, to nearly 13 years in prison for embezzling nearly $6 million from the century-old bank, an institution with ties to Chicago’s Daley family and its political organization.

Matczuk, 61, was also ordered to pay nearly $6 million in restitution to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which is still attempting to recover $90 million lost in the collapse of Washington Federal Bank for Savings. Matczuk was also one of Washington Federal’s customers.

“The amount of loss in this bank collapse is staggering,” U.S. District Court Chief Judge Virginia Kendall said, giving Matczuk the second longest prison sentence in the bank collapse.

“The evidence at trial showed you had daily contact at the bank with Mr. Gembara. Whatever Mr. Gembara wanted, you would do to make him happy…You were benefiting from it,” Kendall added. “It enabled you to go to the casino. It enabled you to go on vacations.

“Sadly, at the end of his life, he chose to be by the person he trusted the most, which is you.”

As federal regulators discovered the massive embezzlement scheme in which so-called “Friends of John” got loans without any collateral or expectation to repay the money, they pushed the bank’s board of directors to suspend Gembara, who was also the bank’s CEO and largest shareholder, on Nov. 29, 2017.

Gembara sought a place to hide, prosecutors say, ending up at Matczuk’s million-dollar home which was — and still is — in foreclosure.

Matczuk and his wife put Gembara up for the weekend in their main bedroom. They say they found him dead Dec. 3, 2017, sitting in a chair with a green rope wrapped around his neck and a spiral staircase. Matczuk’s son and Gembara bought the rope the previous day to hang Christmas decorations at Gembara’s Palos Hills home.

Twelve days later, federal regulators closed the bank, which the Gembara family had run for three generations.

Park Ridge police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office concluded Gembara killed himself, but his family and others involved in the case have expressed doubts that he committed suicide.

“When that man took his own life, he raised his hand against himself at my house. At that time, a party for my children was taking place,” Matczuk told Kendall with the aide of a Polish translator.

“The thought that I wanted to finish off that guy or that I was ok with him finishing himself in my house is not true.”

Gembara loaned Matczuk millions to build a couple of million-dollar-homes in the Wicker Park neighborhood, but the homes were never completed. Prosecutors says Matczuk gave them away for no money after the bank failed.

Gembara relied on Matczuk, a large man known as “Shrek,” as a driver, handyman and bodyguard who used some of the embezzled money to pay Gembara’s bills, prosecutors said.

Matczuk, who suffered a stroke shortly after federal investigators questioned him in early 2019, is among 16 people charged in connection with the bank failure. Fourteen have been convicted. Seven await sentencing, including five bank employees who cooperated with investigators.

Gembara’s longtime friend, Robert M, Kowalski, an attorney and contractor, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for embezzling $7.2 million, the stiffest sentence anyone linked to the bank scandal has received.

Then-Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, whose grandfather and uncle are Chicago’s longest-serving mayors, got a four-month prison sentence for lying to federal regulators about the money he owed the bank and cheating on his taxes.

It’s one of numerous ties the Daley family had with the bank. Its board of directors included William M. Mahon, a high-ranking City Hall official who was also a member of the 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization run by the Daleys for decades. Mahon got an 18-month prison sentence for falsifying bank records to keep regulators from discovering the scheme.

The bank had loaned money to many Daley loyalists as well as the Daley family’s 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization, which got a loan to make repairs on its headquarters a few weeks before the bank collapsed.

Washington Federal’s collapse shocked the Bridgeport community, where many residents have lost money they may never recover. But Gembara’s widow and his former chief financial officer were aware of the bank’s questionable loans — and alerted law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, years before the bank failed.