Baton Rouge restaurateur Adrian Hammond Jr. has been sentenced to a year and one day in federal prison for what the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana describes as an “elaborate scheme” to cover up bank fraud, money laundering and obstruction of Internal Revenue Service laws.
U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Louisiana Brandon J. Fremin announced Hammond’s conviction Thursday afternoon.
Hammond owned and operated multiple businesses in Baton Rouge, including 51/50 Productions LLC and Affiliate Nation LLC, for which he was a studio producer and event promoter, and Northgate Investments LLC.
In 2013, Hammond allegedly defrauded a bank in his efforts to open seafood restaurant Best Boilers on South Sherwood Forest Boulevard. In February 2013, he caused Fidelity Bank—which has since been acquired by Red River Bank—to approve two loans for over $300,000. By providing the bank with false invoices from a local restaurant supply company, he received nearly $133,000 in cashiers checks payable to the vendor as loan proceeds.
After receiving the cashier’s checks, he deposited the money into a bank account in the name of a company with a similar name as the vendor. The account had been created in Georgia under Hammond’s instruction, and he transferred the money to another account before he withdrew the cash.
With Hammond owing over $110,000 in unpaid taxes, in 2016, the IRS issued a levy notice to Southern University, which had entered into a contract with Hammond, through Affiliate Nation LLC, to provide entertainment for an upcoming concert for over $220,000.
When Southern told Hammond it intended to honor the levy, he ended the contract and got an acquaintance to earn the same contract.
Hammond then got the acquaintance to route more than $60,000 from the Southern contract to him, which he deposited into a bank account for another one of his businesses, Boil & Roux Kitchen, which opened in 2015 on Coursey Boulevard.
Before his sentencing, Hammond was in the process of opening a new restaurant on the corner of Florida and Wooddale boulevards called Cathy’s Southern Kitchen.
Hammond was also sentenced to three years of supervised release after his prison term, and he must pay about $200,700 to Red River Bank, $58,000 to the IRS and forfeit about $213,600.
