The sister of a man at the center of a politically connected Bridgeport bank’s collapse was sentenced Tuesday to more than three years in prison for helping him hide hundreds of thousands of dollars after the bank was shut down.
Jan Kowalski pleaded guilty last year to concealing assets from a bankruptcy trustee. She helped her brother, Robert Kowalski, hide more than $357,000 while representing him as an attorney in bankruptcy court.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall criticized Jan Kowalski for abusing her trust as an attorney as she handed down the sentence.
Jan Kowalski told the judge that, “My mother and father had three children, and all three of us are indicted and probably going to jail.”
Prosecutors had asked the judge to give Jan Kowalski as many as nearly four years in prison. She once ran for Cook County Clerk.
Earlier this year, a federal jury convicted Robert Kowalski of embezzling $8 million from Washington Federal Bank for Savings and concealing more than $560,000 in assets when he went bankrupt. He was a longtime friend, customer and business partner of the late John F. Gembara, the bank’s president, chief executive officer and major shareholder.
Washington Federal was shut down in December 2017 amid allegations of massive fraud, days after Gembara was found dead in a bank customer’s $1 million home. Fifteen people, including Robert and Jan Kowalski, have since faced federal criminal charges connected to fraud at the bank. Their brother, William Kowalski, was also charged and struck a deal with prosecutors in which he admitted embezzling money from the bank.
However, the charges against Jan Kowalski revolved primarily around the bankruptcy fraud involving her brother. Her attorney, William Stanton, wrote in a court memo that she did not speak to Robert Kowalski from 1980 until 2015. Stanton wrote that she “inopportunely ran into him at the Daley Center in 2015” and agreed to do some work for him.
“When Bob filed for bankruptcy, he eventually enlisted Jan to hide money for him, and she agreed,” Stanton wrote. “She knows that concealing those funds was improper, and regrets her poor decision to help her brother. She has lost her law license, and incurred much shame.”
Kendall noted during Tuesday’s hearing that none of the hidden money had been recovered, and a bankruptcy trustee spent more than $300,000 looking for it.
