Edward O. Yoder, Bankruptcy Asset Concealment, VA 2024

NORFOLK, Va. — Edward O. Yoder, 50, of Virginia Beach, is headed to federal prison for hiding $350,000 in assets during a bankruptcy he never should have won. The former president and CEO of Monarch Mortgage was sentenced today to two years behind bars for concealing the sale of Sirius XM Radio stock, then funneling the cash through his lover’s bank accounts to dodge creditors and investigators.

Yoder pleaded guilty on October 12, 2016, after federal prosecutors exposed a calculated scheme to defraud the court. Once a high-flying mortgage executive, Yoder’s downfall began with $3 million in loans he personally guaranteed for a failed North Carolina housing project. By July 2011, lawsuits piled up in Virginia Beach Circuit Court, and Yoder filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing $2.74 million in assets — including 133,000 shares of Sirius XM stock worth hundreds of thousands.

When that petition was dismissed in early 2012, Yoder didn’t come clean. Instead, he quietly sold the Sirius stock in October 2012 for approximately $350,000. That same day, he wired every dollar to his Monarch bank account, then shifted it into the account of Susan Spearman, his girlfriend and co-conspirator. She sat on the cash until after Yoder filed a new Chapter 7 petition on December 5, 2012 — shielding it from the court-appointed trustee.

On December 19, 2012, at Yoder’s direction, Spearman moved the full $350,000 to her brokerage at Infinex Financial Group, Virginia Asset Group. Over the next 13 months, Yoder orchestrated more than $310,000 in disbursements from that account — writing checks for his own benefit, and to support his parents and children. All of it hidden in plain sight while claiming financial ruin.

Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and FBI Norfolk Special Agent in Charge Martin Culbreth confirmed the sentencing today. U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson handed down the two-year prison term and ordered Yoder to pay $364,660 in criminal restitution — a figure that includes penalties and investigative costs tied to the fraud.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen W. Haynie prosecuted the case. Court records, including filings tied to Case No. 2:16-cr-83, are available through the Eastern District of Virginia’s District Court website and PACER. For a full press release, visit the U.S. Attorney’s Office online.