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A Pittsfield developer will be spending nearly two years in prison after attempting to defraud a local credit union with the help of one of its vice presidents.

Jeffrey Pierce, 51, who owned and operated five real estate development companies in Pittsfield, was sentenced Friday to serve 20 months in prison, forfeit $3.8 million and pay $877,725 in restitution to Greylock Federal Credit Union and $2.9 million in restitution to the Fidelity Deposit Co. of Maryland. Pierce pleaded guilty in June 2018 to one count of conspiracy to receive money through transactions of a credit union with intent to defraud the credit union and to make false statements to a federal credit union.

A former vice president of Greylock Federal Credit Union, who prosecutors did not identify, between 2005 and 2008 authorized approximately $4 million in various loans and modifications to Pierce and his companies in violation of the credit union’s loan policies. By circumventing Greylock’s policies, the vice president caused the lender to provide Pierce and his companies with funds far in excess of what Pierce and his companies could reasonably receive or repay.

In exchange for improperly authorizing these loans, Pierce paid the vice president $134,773 in kickbacks derived from Greylock loans that were paid to a front company created by the vice president, the free use of a home constructed by one of Pierce’s companies with a Greylock loan and the free use of a BMW purchased by one of Pierce’s companies with a Greylock loan.

Around March 2010, at the unnamed Greylock vice president’s direction, Pierce lied to Greylock, saying the money paid by his companies to the front company were payments for design work that the vice president’s wife provided to Pierce’s construction projects.