atlanta — Seven months after the alleged collapse $140 million Ponzi scheme Having touched the highest political offices in the Republican Party in Georgia and Alabama, some investors are impatient to get their money back.
“We feel like we’ll never see that, even though we’re getting older,” Thomas Todd, a 77-year-old retired business owner, told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger at a meeting Monday.
Raffensperger says his office is ramping up its efforts even as Republican state lawmakers want to move securities regulation to the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, faulting the secretary of state’s securities division for not finding irregularities in First Freedom Building & lend Before you go bankrupt.
Federal investigators said the company defrauded at least 300 investors out of at least $140 million.
Raffensperger is Running for governorHis office’s anti-fraud efforts could become an issue in the Republican primary in May.
Brant Frost IV, who led First Liberty, had decades of involvement in conservative politics. His company said it is a lender that provides short-term, high-interest loans to businesses, paying investors up to 16% annual interest. Promoting “Wall Street Returns to Main Street Investors” A lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission He claims Frost stole $17 million for himself, his relatives and affiliates, and lent millions more that the borrowers never repaid.
Among those who lost money were a company run by former Georgia GOP Chairman David Schieffer, Alabama State Auditor Andrew Sorrell, and a political action committee controlled by Republican Sorrell. Party activists said many Republicans lost money, while others were lured by ads on shows hosted by conservatives, including Erik Erikson, Hugh Hewitt and Charlie Kirk.
A federal court appointed a receiver to recover money for investors. Receiver Gregory Hayes Written on January 30 It still collects 48,000 financial transactions and that some borrowers are struggling to hold on to the real estate and other collateral the recipient says was pledged to secure the loans.
Hayes reported $3.59 million in assets on hand as of December 31. Since then, an auctioneer has sold five luxury cars delivered by the Frost family, bringing in nearly $139,000. The recipient is also selling the First Liberty office in the Atlanta suburb of Newnan for $581,000, but must first settle a $160,000 lien on the property. He also sold Frost’s Patek Phillipe watch for $10,000.
Hayes said he also received more than $300,000 from more than 1,000 political donations made by the Frost family using more than $1 million in investor money. These funds are often subsidized Far-right Republican rebels.
But Hayes says he’s spent $412,000 so far that will come from investors’ money. Recovering the assets “will be a costly and protracted process,” Hayes wrote.
Todd and other investors on Monday bemoaned their picks for Raffensperger. Todd said he lost $750,000 and that First Liberty collapsed before he could invest more. Todd said he was using the income to fund Christian missions. He described it as “God’s money.”
“They were stealing it,” Todd said. “They knew they were stealing it. They were stealing it, because they knew they were in trouble.”
Raffensperger’s office recently announced the appointment of attorney Jason Doss as an investigative agent. Raffensperger is proposing a new state law that would allow his office to order fraudsters to make payments directly to investors. Currently, his office is limited to civil actions against wrongdoers and relaying information to the recipient, state and federal prosecutors.
It is unclear whether federal prosecutors will seek charges. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney in Atlanta Theodore Hertzberg declined to comment Monday.
Georgia House lawmakers, under fire from crooked Republicans, are pushing to give securities regulation to bank regulators.
Assistant Securities Commissioner Nola Zaharis told the House Banking and Banking Committee on Thursday that the transfer of staff and responsibilities away from Raffensperger’s office on July 1, House Bill 934 It can disrupt regulation, he suggests. She also said that Ponzi schemes are difficult to detect.
“Schemes like this are created to create an illusion, and they are schemes that come to fruition,” Zaharis said.
But Republicans criticized her staff for not catching up on First Freedom.
“I don’t really see a system or plan in place to proactively identify these things and eliminate these bad actors before they go too far,” said Republican state Rep. Carter Barrett of Cumming.