Opening Of New Lenox Trial Focuses On Kee Owners’ Auto Loan Application

Will County prosecutors said Tuesday the owner of Kee Firearms in New Lenox initiated a false claim that Kee Construction earned $400,000 a month on forms used to buy two Ford Broncos in 2023, and that company’s owner later reinforced the lie by signing the paperwork.

The allegations were part of opening statements by Assistant State’s Attorney Nicholas Plattos in the trial of Jeffery Regnier, owner of Kee Firearms and Training, and Greta Keranen, of Kee Construction. Both are charged with forgery, and Keranen is also charged with loan fraud and wire fraud.

But defense attorney Lawrence Beaumont said the alleged false information on the business credit application was created by the auto dealership and not the defendants. The defendants also claimed the bank that approved the loan did so automatically within seconds and did not rely on the disputed estimate of Kee Construction’s gross monthly profit, estimated on the form at $400,000.

Retired U.S. Secret Service officer Jason Simpson testified that in April 2023, while working as an agent, he was asked by the Will County state’s attorney’s office to help locate two Ford Broncos connected to an ongoing investigation. He said he found the vehicles, registered to Regnier and his son Gavin, at Kee Firearms in an industrial park in New Lenox.

But in cross examination, he said the vehicles were not being hidden but were found in an open parking lot in daylight. Beaumont said this shows the business owners were not hiding fraudulent actions.

Ahmed “Andy” Hamda, a salesperson at Curry Motors since 2018, testified he sold two Ford Broncos to Regnier and Keranen on April 3, 2023. Hamda sai Regnier came in alone and negotiated the price, then requested the transaction be paid through a business credit application with Kee Construction.

Hamda said that he and his coworker pulled information from a prior deal with the business owners involving Kee Construction for the paperwork and said the dealership later required Keranen, as the company officer, to return and co-sign.

Defense attorneys said the business owners had significant assets and a history of successfully paying off multiple bank-financed vehicles.

They also said Keranen was called in only after the paperwork was submitted, was never walked through the documents and simply signed what was presented on a computer.

The state seized the Broncos, along with investment accounts the defendants said are valued at about $5.5 million, and raided the couples’ house and businesses in 2023 while investigating them for money laundering.

Regnier and Keranen won a case July 16 to recover the seized property and securities under the Eighth Amendment’s protection against excessive fines, but the case was temporarily removed from the court’s active hearing schedule Nov. 12.

The state tried to get the Illinois Supreme Court to hear the case at the end of October, but the high court refused. Regnier said Tuesday that the property has not been returned.

Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, who has overseen the case for two years, will decide the case. She denied the prosecutors’ request to reschedule the trial in July, which led the state to drop the charges.

After refiling the charges in August, the state on Monday dismissed two charges, theft by deception and burglary, on the eve of the trial.

“It’s your fundamental American right to have your day in court,” Regnier said Tuesday. “We’ve been fighting to have this day.”

“It should not take this long to have your day in court,” Keranen said.

More testimony is expected in the case Wednesday.

awright@chicagotribune.com