ATLANTA (AP) - A member of the Georgia Board of Regents has been charged with trying to defraud a financial company of $1.8 million, including falsely claiming that the University of Georgia would pay a $488,000 debt he was owed.
Attorney General Chris Carr announced racketeering and theft charges against C. Dean Alford on Thursday. Katie Byrd, a spokeswoman for Carr’s office, said arrangements were made for Alford to turn himself in.
“Acts of fraud and corruption have no place in Georgia’s state government,” the Republican Carr said in a statement.
The Conyers resident abruptly resigned from the board overseeing Georgia’s public universities.
“Every state official must follow the highest ethical standards in all aspects of their conduct,” Kemp said in a statement. “That is why I demanded, and received, Dean Alford’s resignation from the Board of Regents, effective immediately.
Alford submitted an undated, two-sentence resignation letter to the Republican governor, which concluded by saying “It has been an honor to serve the state of Georgia.”
The remaining regents held an emergency meeting Thursday in which regents spokeswoman Jen Ryan said they were briefed on the situation.
It’s unclear whether Alford has a lawyer representing him. Emails to Alford and his company and a call to its office weren’t immediately answered Thursday.
Alford is charged with racketeering for trying to falsify financial transactions with Versant Funding LLC, Carr said. The allegations revolve around a common business practice known as factoring, in which a business will sell rights to future income to a lender in exchange for up-front money. The lender profits by buying the future income at a discount. Alford transmitted fraudulent documents to Versant trying to prove he had future accounts as part of an effort to sell them to Versant for nearly $1.8 million, Carr said.
As part of his effort to obtain money from Versant, Alford is also charged with theft by taking for faking a Sept. 24 document that he submitted to Versant claiming the University of Georgia would pay Versant nearly $488,000 to cover a debt owed to Allied Energy Services, Alford’s company. The document included a fraudulent signature from a University of Georgia employee, according to Carr.
Versant is based in Boca Raton, Florida. It did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Carr’s office did not release a written copy of the charges against Alford.
Alford has a long background in state government. He served five terms in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993 as a Democrat, but later gravitated toward Republicans. He later served on the state Board of Education, chaired the board of the Technical College System of Georgia, with then-Gov. Nathan Deal appointing Alford as a regent in 2012. Kemp reappointed him in July.
Alford has also been a longtime civic power player in Conyers, and has drawn national notice for his role in forming Miracle League, an organization that creates baseball leagues on fields accessible to children with physical and mental disabilities.
Alford and his brother long ran Allied Energy Services, a company that developed power plants and other energy projects, including some in Georgia.
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A previous version of this story was corrected to show Chris Carr is the attorney general, not Casey Cagle.
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