Former Grider Hill Marina owner sentenced

Posted March 1, 2017 at 10:19 am

The former owner of Grider Hill Marina, a full-service marina located in Clinton County on Lake Cumberland, has been sentenced to serve prison time.

The Kentucky man, who operated a marina on Lake Cumberland, has been sentenced to 50 months in federal prison for bank fraud.

According to a press release received by the Clinton County News last week, Senior U.S. District Judge Joseph M. Hood sentenced John Guzman, 70, of Shelby County, Kentucky, for nine counts of bank fraud.

The press release was issued last week by Carlton S. Shier, IV, Acting United States Attorney, Eastern District of Kentucky.

In addition to his federal prison sentence, Guzman was sentenced to five years of supervised release. Under federal law, Guzman must serve at least 85 percent of his prison sentence.

Guzman owned the marina that had been built and operated for decades by the Sloan family.

Bruce Sloan originally built and operated the marina shortly after Lake Cumberland was formed.

It was later operated by his sons and their families, Bruce, Ned, John and Tony.

Guzman was convicted last year, after a one-week trial in Lexington, by a jury that found him guilty of defrauding American Founders Bank of over $4,000,000. According to evidence presented at trial, Guzman bought the Grider Hill Marina, on Lake Cumberland, using money from nine fraudulent bank loans. Guzman submitted false paperwork in his bank loan applications, and claimed that the money would be used to buy boats and homes that did not actually exist. As part of his fraud, he falsified appraisal documents and insurance policies for the nonexistent collateral, and forged signatures of investors and acquaintances, as well as that of his deceased brother.

Carlton S. Shier, IV, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Amy S. Hess, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Louisville Division; and Joseph Moriarty, Special Agent in Charge, FDIC OIG Chicago Division, jointly made the announcement this week. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Neeraj Gupta and Ken Taylor prosecuted this case on behalf of the federal government.