Former University of Nebraska Regent David Hergert admitted in court Thursday to misstating his assets in loan documents during his term representing western Nebraska.
"Are you guilty?" U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf asked Hergert at the noon-hour hearing in a Lincoln courtroom.
Yes, said Hergert, who won election in November 2004 and soon after faced allegations he had broken campaign finance laws.
He pleaded guilty to bank fraud as part of an agreement that calls for five years of probation and six months house arrest when he is sentenced in June.
Hergert, 71, sat flanked by attorneys and admitted he misstated the assets, including grain inventories, of Hergert Milling Inc. in monthly reporting documents submitted as terms of a loan with the First National Bank of Omaha.
Kopf asked him what it was about the base borrowing certificates that was false.
"We had a terrible mess, but part of it was not correct," said Hergert of Mitchell.
In the indictment, in which he originally faced 18 charges, the government alleged that from January 2000 to December 2006 he inflated the assets of Hergert Milling Inc. in order to keep a $3 million revolving loan.
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