BENTON — A 45-year-old Sesser man was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Benton after being convicted of bankruptcy fraud.

Scott L. Thompson was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay a fine and special assessment totaling $800. Thompson was indicted on February 2, 2016, as part of an effort to crackdown on those who commit fraud during the course of bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

The indictment charged Thompson with concealing assets in a bankruptcy case. When he pleaded guilty on June 15, 2016, Thompson admitted that he concealed from the Bankruptcy Court a $28,129 settlement he received for a worker’s compensation claim.

Thompson also admitted that he concealed from the Bankruptcy Court his federal tax returns and failed to disclose those tax returns, as the Bankruptcy Court had ordered. Thompson’s chapter 13 bankruptcy case was filed and litigated in the United States Bankruptcy Court in Benton.

The charges resulted from a referral by the U.S. Trustee and the investigation was conducted by agents from the Springfield Division, Fairview Heights Resident Agency, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) with assistance from members of the Southern District of Illinois Bankruptcy Fraud Working Group coordinated by the U.S. Trustee. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Scott A. Verseman.