ATLANTA — More than a dozen victims of an alleged Georgia-based Ponzi scheme met publicly Monday with Georgia’s secretary of state as both state and federal investigations into First Liberty Building and Loan continue.
Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray was in the room Monday with those investors.
Court documents say that only about $3.5 million has been recovered so far in an alleged $140 million Ponzi scheme, Channel 2 Action News Investigates learned.
It was in a nondescript room in a suburban office park where people who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, some even millions, gathered.
More than a dozen investors, several who did not want to show their names or faces on camera, all wanted to tell a story of a broken trust:
- “Sadly, I got two of my sons and a daughter involved, and we as a family lost well over $1 million.”
- “They took me for $750,000.”
- “They took my life savings.”
- “I know that several people in this room have lost over $1 million.”
“We prayed together. We cried together,” said Allen Baldwin, who said he prayed on the phone with First Liberty’s owner Brant Frost IV when he got the news the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down as an alleged $140 million Ponzi scheme last summer.
He said he was unable at first to believe the worst about the family he considered friends.
“It’s obvious that this was no accident. There was a lot of, a lot of intent behind. And it hurts. It hurts very bad,” Baldwin said.
Channel 2 Action News Investigates pulled the new second quarterly receiver’s report on First Liberty’s liquidation that says while the receiver generated hundreds of thousands of dollars selling the First Liberty building and the Frost family’s luxury vehicles.
“The primary asset of the receivership consists of approximately sixty (60) individual, defaulted loans and The Receiver anticipates that many of the borrowers and guarantors will have not sufficient assets to pay back their loans to the Receivership Investors here...have little faith...they will see much of their money back,” the report says.
Investors say they were convinced to invest because of the Frost family’s alleged conservative and Republican values.
The receiver’s report now finds that instead of going to investments, as promised, First Liberty “made almost 1,000 political ‘donations’ totaling over $1 million using investor funds.”
“There were just so many, so many things that made it so easy to believe and trust and trust was just horribly violated,” Baldwin said.
Last Week, Channel 2 Action News shared that the secretary of state has appointed a special investigative agent to lead their probe.
The receiver appointed by the SEC continues to try to find assets, even auctioning off Brant Frost’s $20,000 Patek Phillipe watch.
The receiver also says they will demand repayment of any political donations made illegally with other people’s money.
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- State office investigating alleged $140M Georgia Ponzi scheme could lose control
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- First Liberty founder’s son resigns as head of Coweta GOP amid investigation into company
- Ethics commission goes after PAC tied to First Liberty Ponzi scheme, saying it violated GA law
- Receiver uncovers more than $1M in political ‘donations’ made by First Liberty owner, documents show
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