Alfred Cross Originally of Mattoon has been sentenced 6 and a half years in federal prison. Cross was sentenced on a federal conviction of five counts of bank fraud, according to Steven Weinhoeft U.S Attorney for Southern District of Illinois. Cross opened checking accounts in many banks around Illinois, such as Midland states bank of Effingham, Washington savings bank in Effingham and First Southern bank in Carbondale to name a few. Cross would open accounts and wait for a short period of time, then deposit large amounts of money in forms of checks that he would write out of state bank accounts in the name of businesses that Cross controlled. He would then pull out almost all of the money in the accounts before the bank’s systems would register as NSF. Cross asked for a more lenient sentence due to his age and medical conditions but the court’s decision was based on the fact that Cross had 16 Prior convictions some similar in conduct and the court was just not convinced that he could be deterred from future criminal activity.