Georgia white-collar fugitive arrested

A south Georgia bank director was arrested recently about 100 miles southeast of the small town financial institution he’s accused of looting.

The 47-year-old had been a fugitive for 18 months after reportedly confessing to embezzlement in a letter to his family and then faking his death, officials said.

The former banker was accused in July of 2012 of embezzling $21 million from a bank in Ailey, Georgia, a small town about 170 miles southeast of Atlanta.

The man reportedly brought investor clients to the bank to save the institution, but he was accused of stealing from the bank, and causing its downfall, as well as bilking investors.

The defendant is also accused of federal wire fraud charges.

He was arrested during a traffic stop in a coastal Georgia town, officials said.

While his arrest made national news, it was not his first time brush with widespread media exposure. He also made headlines when he disappeared in the summer of 2012 after leaving a suicide note in which he reportedly confessed to defrauding the bank and investors.

He apparently wrote in the note that he planned to kill himself while on a Key West ferry in Florida.

A Florida judge later ruled that the man was dead.

However, FBI officials said they did not believe the man was dead and that they continued their investigation and search.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other media sources report that after his disappearance, the defendant apparently did not have access to any funds allegedly embezzled. He was reportedly homeless and working odd jobs for cash.

Anyone facing white-collar charges or the prospect of those allegations being filed against them should act quickly and decisively to defend themselves with the assistance of an attorney experienced in this complicated area of law.

Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Captured S. Georgia banker: Family didn’t know he was alive,” J. Scott Trubey,” Jan. 2, 2014