STATESBORO, GEORGIA — A 48-year-old man who concocted a Ponzi scheme that conned more than a hundred people in two states out of $51 million was sentenced on Tuesday to 30 years in federal prison, according to federal officials.
Defendant Aubrey Lee Price’s financial crimes led to the collapse of a federally insured bank, officials said.
Price also faked his own death by sending “suicide letters” to acquaintances in June 2012. He was arrested during a traffic stop in 2013.
“Through a web of lies and deceit, Aubrey Lee Price conned his elderly investors and a federally insured bank of more than $70 million, and then attempted to further his con and avoid accountability by faking his own death. However, his life on the lam ended with a routine traffic stop. Today’s sentence sends a strong message to those who seek to defraud the investing public and our financial institutions that we will pursue them and bring them to justice,” stated U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
According to court filings, these are the facts and circumstances surrounding this case:
Price embezzled over $21 million in capital from MB&T, and lost much of it by investing in risky equity securities and options.
To cover up his fraud, Price provided MB&T officials with bogus account statements and other false documents which falsely indicated the bank’s capital was safely held in an account at a financial services firm, when in truth, most of the money was gone.
A further investigation of Price revealed that between June 2009 and June 2012, he also defrauded approximately 115 individual investors who had invested $51 million in two investment funds he managed.
Price lost almost all of that money through speculative trading, and to cover up his losses, Price posted fake account statements on a secure website that fraudulently reflected fictitious assets and fabricated investment returns for each investor.
In mid-June 2012, Price sent acquaintances “suicide letters” in which he admitted he had defrauded MB&T Bank and Price’s individual investors, and that he planned to kill himself by throwing himself off a high-speed ferry boat after it left Key West, Florida.
As a result of the suicide claim, the U.S. Coast Guard searched to no avail for Price’s body. Shortly after sending the letters, Price disappeared.
After more than a year of searching for Price, he was arrested on December 31, 2013, after he presented a false identification during a routine traffic stop in Brunswick, Georgia.
In an exclusive series of jailhouse interviews with Atlanta magazine last February and March, Price claimed that he was a drug runner, a pimp, and a cage fighter, among other unlikely vocations, during what he called his “departure” from the seemingly simple and successful life he’d known for four and a half decades. His supposed aliases included Jason, Diesel, and Gator, and he confessed to taking cocaine, smoking marijuana, and becoming addicted to Adderall while on the lam.
(Video: Channel 11 NBC News Atlanta – July 2012 Report)
Price has been in custody since his arrest on December 31, 2013, officials said.
As part of his sentence, Price will also be ordered to pay restitution to the victims. Restitution will be determined at a hearing in February.In addition, Price was ordered to forfeit a total of $51 million, representing the proceeds of his crimes, according to authorities.