Eight months after south Georgia banker Aubrey Lee Price was sentenced to 70 years in prison for defrauding his bank and investment clients and three years after authorities say Price staged his own death, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has filed suit against 11 former directors of Price's failed bank.
One of the directors named in the suit is currently chairman of the Banks & Banking Committee in the Georgia House of Representatives.
The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Dublin, claims that “gross negligence and breaches of fiduciary duty” by the former directors of Montgomery Bank & Trust allowed Price to misappropriate more than $14 million from the bank between January 2011 and May 2012.
“Defendants failed to oversee the bank’s investment activities, failed to comply with an FDIC cease and desist order, failed to comply with internal bank policies, failed to create functioning oversight committees and otherwise abdicated their responsibilities, thereby allowing Price to easily misappropriate $14,700,000 of the bank’s money for his own use,” the suit alleges.
A former minister who once pastored Clear Springs Baptist Church in Johns Creek, Price disappeared in June 2012 after allegedly writing a suicide note in which he admitted to defrauding investor clients and his bank in the tiny south Georgia town of Ailey.
Price, who was indicted in July 2012 on charges of embezzling $21 million from Montgomery Bank & Trust, remained missing until New Year’s Eve 2013, when he was arrested during a traffic stop in Brunswick.
After his arrest, Price asked deputies to notify his family that he was alive before alerting the news media of his arrest, Glynn County sheriff's officials said.
Price, now 48, pleaded guilty in June 2014 to one count each of bank fraud, wire fraud and securities fraud and was sentenced to federal prison in October. He is currently serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Estill, S.C.
Montgomery Bank & Trust was closed by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance on July 6, 2012, and the FDIC was appointed receiver. The FDIC filed the lawsuit Wednesday against former bank directors Rebecca Champion, Larry D. Coleman, Trae Dorough, John Falk, Michael Gunter, Gregory A. Morris, Lloyd E. Moses, Thomas A. Peterson III, Miller P. Robinson, John L. Robison Jr. and John Tyson.
Morris, a Republican state representative from Vidalia, is chairman of the House Banks & Banking Committee.
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