Former Williamson County State’s Attorney Brandon Zanotti was sentenced in a Southern Illinois federal court for scheming to sell seven commercial rental properties by falsifying loan and other bank documents.
Zanotti was sentenced on May 15 to two years of probation, 20 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.
In March, Zanotti pleaded guilty at the Benton courthouse of the U.S. District for the Southern District of Illinois to one felony count of aiding and abetting the making of a false bank entry.
Zanotti admitted that during a meeting on April 6, 2022, with a bank president and buyer, they all agreed to fraudulently make it appear as if the loan to buy the properties in Williamson and Franklin Counties was actually a refinancing.
The documents were backdated to falsely indicate that the buyer purchased the properties on Feb. 1, 2022, for the falsely inflated price of $545,152. The documents also falsely indicated that the bank was refinancing 80 percent of that loan, with the buyers bringing 20 percent in cash to the sale.
The actual sale price for the properties was $436,122, and the buyers were not bringing any cash to the transaction. The loan was approved by the bank’s loan committee based upon the false information.
Zanotti resigned as State’s Attorney later in 2022, and the suspension of his law license is pending before the Illinois Attorney Disciplinary Commission.
The case was investigated by the FBI Springfield Office and the Federal Housing FInance Agency Office of Inspector General.
Special Attorney Hal Goldsmith from the Eastern District of Missouri handled prosecution after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois was recused from the case.
According to his personnel bio on the website for the Williamson County State's Attorney's Office, Zanotti earned his bachelor's degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale and his juris doctor from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law.
He served as a congressional legal clerk in the U.S. Senate to Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. He also worked as a trial attorney with Feirich Mager Green Ryan in Carbondale.
In 2012, Zanotti was appointed to serve as an administrative law judge over the state's workers' compensation cases, where he heard and decided over 150 cases.
Then in September 2014, Zanotti was chosen by former State's Attorney Charles "Chuck" Garnati to fill the remaining two years of his term. He served as State's Attorney until his resignation in 2022.