CHICAGO-Noted Block 37 developer Laurance Freed and a company vice president pled innocent on Thursday to federal bank fraud charges leveled in connection with information they provided to secure development financing.

Freed, president of Chicago-based Joseph Freed & Associates LLC, and Caroline Walters, vice president and treasurer of the firm, pled innocent to seven counts of bank fraud, one count of mail fraud, and five counts of making false statements to banks stemming from a 14-count indictment returned last month by a federal grand jury, according to Crain's Chicago Business.

According to the indictment, the charges leveled against the two executives are in connection with the redevelopment of the former Goldblatt's department store in Uptown, which was funded in part with $6.7 million in tax-increment financing from the city of Chicago. A Freed venture used the TIF notes as collateral to secure a $9-million loan from Cole Taylor Bank and, later, a $150-million line of credit from a group of lenders, the federal government charges.

Freed and Walters allegedly concealed that they had “double-pledged” a portion of the TIF funds to obtain financing from lenders. See story in Crain's Chicago Business.