The former head of the Hartsburg State Bank in Logan County is going to prison for two and a half years. The U.S. Attorney's Office says a federal Judge in central Illinois has sentenced 66 year old Bryson Russell of Lincoln for embezzlement. Russell will also have to return more than $562,000 he stole by creating false loans and cashing a customer's certificate of deposit. Prosecutors and the FBI say Russell became bank President in 1989 and began stealing cash in 1992, eventually switching to the false paperwork to hide what he took to pay personal obligations and to embezzle more. He created the loans in the names of customers and relatives. Russell started work at Hartsburg State Bank in 1966
Logan county bank official sentenced to prison
