The former general counsel at a failed New Orleans bank has been sued by a group of creditors who allege he conspired with other former executives to deceive regulators about the bank's poor financing.

The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the bankruptcy of First NBC Bank seeks, in a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, unspecified money damages from Gregory St. Angelo, who was GC at First NBC Bank from its inception in 2006 to its collapse in 2017.

Also named in the complaint are the bank founder and former chief executive and other ex-high-ranking officials at the bank, as well as outside auditing firm Ernst & Young, which the plaintiff claims breached its contract and committed accounting malpractice and professional negligence by allegedly using “manipulative accounting techniques” that “contributed to the appearance of solid earnings growth.”

In March, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a criminal bill of information against St. Angelo for conspiracy to commit bank fraud. His attorney in that case, Peter Thomson, a member of Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann in New Orleans, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on behalf of his client.

The gist of the plaintiff's claim against St. Angelo largely mirrors that of the criminal charge, to which he faces up to a maximum of 30 years in federal prison and has pleaded not guilty.

According to those documents, St. Angelo conspired with the other former executives to falsify documents and take out loans that appeared to be paid off but never were, thereby “contribut[ing] to the appearance of solid earnings growth,” the civil complaint said.

“As 2016 unfolded, however, a series of disclosures revealed that much of FNBC's reported strong earnings growth, and capital strength, had been illusory,” it stated.

By the time of First NBC's nearly $1 billion crash that marked the costliest failure of an American bank since the height of the 2008 financial crisis, St. Angelo and the companies he controlled had about $46.7 million in loans from the bank, which also had paid him nearly $10 million for purported tax credit investments, according to the documents. The civil complaint also said that as GC at the bank St. Angelo received a monthly $40,000 retainer.

The O'Bell Law Firm in Metairie, Louisiana; Glancy Prongay & Murray in New York; and Congeni Law Firm in New Orleans represent the creditors committee-plaintiffs.

“We intend to vigorously prosecute the claims arising from direct harm to the holding company, including causing it to continue making millions of dollars of capital investments in the bank at times when it was poorly controlled and faced exceptional risk,” lead attorney Eric O'Bell said in an emailed statement to Corporate Counsel.

A spokesperson for EY did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment about the allegations against it.