A former top executive of a failed North Georgia bank accepted responsibility Wednesday for his role in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme a judge said contributed to the bank's failure.
"I want to apologize to the court," Randy Jones, 50, told Senior U.S. District Judge William O'Kelley at a sentencing hearing in Gainesville.
On Wednesday afternoon, O'Kelley continued the sentencing hearing until Thursday morning. Also facing sentencing are: Berrong Moulton, 46, a real estate developer from Cleveland; Douglas Emig, 55, the part-owner of a concrete company from Clarksville; and Joseph C. Penick Jr., 51, a developer and store owner from Cornelia.
Jones is the former executive vice president and chief loan officer for Cornelia-based Community Bank & Trust, which regulators shut down in early 2010. He pleaded guilty in January to bank fraud charges. Federal prosecutors have said Jones, who left the bank in May 2009, received kickbacks from fraudulent transactions involving real estate loans he made beginning in 2005.
"This case can be summed up in one word: greed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Phillips told O'Kelley.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a range of incarceration between 151 months and 188 months for Jones. As part of a plea agreement, Phillips recommended Jones receive 151 months in custody.
"I believe that is a fair sentence and appropriate sentence," given the length of the fraud, the number of people it affected and the amount of money involved, Phillips said. O'Kelley previously made a finding that Jones' fraud accounted for a total loss of almost $6 million.
The bank's many investors also lost their savings "because people like Randy Jones ran this bank into the ground because of their greed," Phillips said.
O'Kelley said the bank fraud was not the sole cause of the bank's failure. "But it was a contributing cause," the judge said.
Jones' attorney, Bruce Maloy, asked O'Kelley to impose a sentence of two years in custody, followed by home confinement and probation. Maloy told the judge that Jones' wife suffers from depression and he is needed to care for the couple's two children.
James Martin, a psychologist, testified on behalf of Jones and described a Cornelia household in complete disarray. Jones' wife is a hoarder who rarely ventures out of the house, and the upper floor of the home where she resides is filled with clutter, Martin testified. Some rooms are so full the doors can only be cracked open, and the only way to walk from one room to another is to use a two-foot-wide path, he said.
Maloy said a two-year term was warranted because Jones is an "irreplaceable caregiver" for his children.
"It was some of the most misguided thinking someone could engage in," Maloy said of his client's actions. "It was also completely outside of Randy Jones' character."
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