Two months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, the former chief credit officer of a failed North Georgia bank has been banned from working in the industry, federal regulators said Friday.
Randy Jones agreed to the ban from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. without admitting or denying wrongdoing, the FDIC said. Jones, who was also an executive vice president at Community Bank & Trust of Cornelia, was investigated for unsafe or unsound banking practices by the FDIC.
Jones is expected to be sentenced in May and could face up to 30 years in prison and a fine up to $1 million.
The ban was announced Friday as part of the regulator’s monthly listing of industry enforcement actions.
Community Bank was seized by regulators and sold to SCBT Financial Corp. in January 2010 and continues to operate under the Community Bank name.
Federal prosecutors said Jones made out loans to straw purchasers and separately issued loans in the names of unsuspecting relatives.
In addition, Jones also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks on fraudulent loans to co-conspirators beginning in 2005, prosecutors said.
A message left with his attorney was not immediately returned.
Fifty-seven banks have failed in Georgia since mid-2008, more than any other state. Criminal indictments or convictions have occurred in four failed bank cases. Experts said criminal wrongdoing is rare in such cases.
Also on Friday, the FDIC announced consent orders with two more Georgia community banks. Atlanta-based Georgia Banking Co. and Manchester-based F&M Bank & Trust Co. agreed to orders requiring them to improve internal controls.
At least half of the state’s banks are under some form of regulatory mandate to improve operations.
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