Posted Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:50 PM EST

by MOEZILLA     

A legendary banking story turns out to be true

It It seemed like an urban legend -- but it's confirmed by a 1979 article in the L.A. Times. A Pennsylvania banker punished more than 50 customers who were late on their loan payments by...spanking them in his office.

In the tiny town of Baden, Pennsylvania (population 4,377), bank manager David Rhodes admitted that he'd spanked all 50 of the delinquent customers, bragging that it was effective because "I never had any trouble with them afterward."

The best part of the story? He was later convicted for "misappropriating" $88,000 in bank money -- and was sent to prison for three years.

The reason? "[H]e was forced to make eight unrecorded loans totaling $88,268 when six of those who were spanked threatened to report him to his superiors."

Rhodes had worked at the bank for 14 years, averaging about 1,500 loans a year. But most of the customers he spanked were men -- not middle-aged men, but younger -- and one of them threatened to report it as a homosexual activity. At the trial, Rhodes' attorney defensively presented polygraph results and psychiatric tests, saying later that "all undertones of homosexuality were disproved." (Rhodes was married and had two teenaged children.)

"Although he was aware the loans were illegal," the AP reported, "Rhodes said he didn't turn himself in because he didn't think the authorities would believe his story."

Jet magazine called him the "Banker Spanker," and provided one more crucial detail about his case. "He said he was glad when bank auditors caught up to the scheme." And the L.A. Times' site provides the ultimate epitaph, offering the "all-time great headline" which appeared in another newspaper.

Ex-banker, Spanker, Winds Up in Tanker.