Former dealership owner sentenced in check-kiting case

A former Cape Girardeau car dealership owner was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Monday for his part in a check-kiting scheme.

Judge Rodney Sippel sentenced Clinton W. McDonough, 32, of Jackson to 18 months plus five years of supervised release. McDonough was also ordered to pay restitution of $1,343,000, according to U.S. Attorney Keith Sorrell.

McDonough, former owner of McDonough Motors, a local Mazda auto dealership, was indicted in November, for passing more than $200,000 from one bank account to another in a scheme known as check kiting.

The dealership has since been sold and is now Bening Motors.

McDonough reportedly issued at least seven checks ranging in value from $14,500 to $40,400 between the Union Planters Bank and the Bank of Missouri in Cape Girardeau over a five-month period.

Check kiting is when someone with access to accounts at more than one bank writes an insufficient funds check on one account and deposits it into a second account with no balance or a low balance and writes checks on that account. He then writes a check on the second account and deposits it back into the first at the time the first check would clear.