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Demetrakis, 79, admitted in U.S. District Court earlier this year that he and Dabies, his former business partner, conspired to skirt limits on how much in loans any individual can receive.
His April guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to make false entries to deceive a financial institution appeared to bolster the government’s case against Dabies, who was the founder and former chairman of Mariner's Bank, which handled the loans.
Dabies and his former chief financial officer, Michael McManus, remain under federal indictment in connection with a alleged series of illegal loans.
Federal authorities said Demetrakis helped secure more than $4 million in credit for Dabies by having himself and two of his relatives designated as borrowers.
Demetrakis admitted giving the money to Daibes without either of them telling the FDIC or Mariner's Bank that Daibes had any "beneficial interest" in the loans or that he would handle payments – which authorities said he didn’t.
Once the FDIC got suspicious, Dabies and others gave the FDIC a bogus backdated sales contract to make it seem as though Demetrakis had obtained the $1.8 million loan from Mariner’s Bank in order to pay Daibes for his interest in a real estate deal, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
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