‘Dead’ US Bank Director Arrested on Fraud
Charges 18 Months After Staging Suicide
By Kate Brumback, AP –
January 3, 2014
Atlanta, Georgia: A US
bank director accused of losing millions of investor dollars before vanishing
is set to appear in court.
The US attorney’s
office in Savannah said Aubrey Lee Price, 47, is due to appear before a federal
judge in Brunswick on Thursday. Price was arrested on Tuesday during a traffic
stop on Interstate 95 in Brunswick for having tinted windows.
Price is due to face
court after staging his death in 2012 with $45 million still missing
Price had disappeared in June 2012 after sending a rambling letter to his family and acquaintances saying he had lost millions of investment dollars and planned to kill himself by jumping off a ferry.
The FBI released this
image of Aubrey Lee Price, which was taken on June 16, 2012 – the day he went
missing.
A Florida judge
declared him dead about a year ago. But the FBI had said it didn’t believe
Price was dead and continued to search for him.
Prosecutors say Price
raised $US45 million from his bank and 115 investors, and lost much of the
money.
The FBI had added new
photos of Price to its wanted poster in July 2012. The surveillance images
showed Price at the Key West, Florida, airport and ferry terminal on June 16,
2012 wearing a white long-sleeved T-shirt, tan shorts, sneakers, baseball cap
and backpack. He appeared to have changed his baseball cap at some point along
the way as he is seen wearing a maroon cap in the photo from the airport and a
white cap in the photo from the ferry terminal.
Captured … the FBI’s
updated image of Aubrey Lee Price.
Authorities have
accused him of embezzling millions from a small south Georgia bank after he
became a director when a company he controlled bought a controlling share of
stock in Montgomery Bank & Trust. The bank was seized by federal regulators
in July 2012.
Federal prosecutors in
New York have charged Price with wire fraud, and a federal grand jury in
Savannah indicted him on charges of bank fraud. The Securities and Exchange
Commission has also filed a civil complaint in federal court in Atlanta saying
he defrauded investors.
Investigators have
said Price left his home in south Georgia on June 16, telling his family he was
headed to Guatemala for business. A few days later, Price’s family received
letters saying he was going to Key West to board a ferry headed to Fort Meyers
and planned to jump off somewhere along the way to end his life, investigators
have said.
In a rambling letter
to federal investigators that investigators believe was written by Price, he
confessed to losing millions through bad investments but denies stealing any
money.
His family had told
investigators they believed he was dead. FBI investigators had circumstantial
evidence that led them to believe Price was still alive, although they didn’t
completely rule out suicide during the investigation, Senatore said.
Investigators had
previously said Price was known to travel to Venezuela and Guatemala. The
wanted poster said he had been known to fund, finance and build churches in
South America and to do mission work there. The poster also lists several boats
and personal watercraft that Price is known to own.
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