ATLANTA (AP) — A bank director accused of losing millions
of investors’ dollars before vanishing last year was arrested Tuesday
during a traffic stop in a city in south Georgia.
Aubrey Lee
Price, 47, was arrested Wednesday during a stop for a vehicle and
traffic violation on Interstate 95 in Brunswick by members of the Glynn
County Sheriff’s Department, the U.S. attorney’s office in Savannah
said. Price is set to make his initial appearance before a federal judge
in Brunswick on Thursday.
Price disappeared in June 2012 after
sending a rambling letter to his family and acquaintances that
investigators described as a confession. A Florida judge declared him
dead a year ago, but the FBI had said it didn’t believe Price was dead
and continued to search for him.
Prosecutors have said Price had
raised roughly $40 million from about 115 investors, mostly in Georgia
and Florida, through the sale of membership interests in his investment
firm. Authorities believe Price slipped away with up to $17 million of
investors’ money. He has been indicted in federal courts in New York and
Georgia, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a
complaint against him in federal court in Atlanta.
FBI Special
Agent Stephen Emmett said in an email Tuesday that he didn’t know
whether Price’s wife and children had known that he was still alive. His
family had previously told investigators they believed Price was dead. A
call to a number listed for his wife in Valdosta on Tuesday evening did
not go through.
Price left his home in south Georgia on June 16,
2012, telling his family he was headed to Guatemala for business,
authorities have said. Two days later, Price’s family and acquaintances
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.
"My depression and discouragement have driven me to deep
anxiety, fear and shame. I am emotionally overwhelmed and incapable of
continuing in this life," said a rambling confession letter
investigators believe was written by Price.
"I created false statements, covered up my losses and deceived and hurt the very people I was trying
to help," the letter said.
Credit
card records showed he purchased dive weights and a ferry ticket. The
ferry ticket was scanned at the boarding point, and security camera
footage released by the FBI about six weeks after his disappearance
showed Price at the Key West, Fla., airport and ferry terminal on the
day he disappeared.
Price owned real estate in Venezuela and had
told people he frequently went there and to Guatemala. The FBI said in
February that investigators had accounted for all the vehicles Price
owned, except for a 17-foot fiberglass boat. The agency said at the time
that it was possible Price had used the boat to flee and may still be
using it.
Price became director of Montgomery Bank & Trust in
Ailey, Ga., in December 2010, when a company he controlled bought a
controlling portion of the bank’s stock, according to a complaint filed
in June 2012 in federal court in New York. Price then opened brokerage
accounts through a securities clearing and custodial firm in New York
and told bank managers he would invest in U.S. Treasury securities.
Instead
of investing the bank’s money, authorities say Price wired the funds
into accounts he controlled at other financial institutions and provided
bank managers with fraudulent documents.
Price lived with his
wife and children in Bradenton, Fla., but bought a home in Valdosta in
the months before his disappearance, according to authorities. Price had
moved his family to the south Georgia city, where his wife’s parents
lived, just a few weeks before he disappeared.
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