Black Collar Crime Round-Up: July 17, 2012
Aubrey Lee Price • Joseph V. Pullen, Jr. • Giangiacomo Ruggeri
Charged: Paul Kevin Hendrix, youth pastor, First Baptist Church Cherokee Village, Arkansas, with sexually touching a 14-year-old girl in a room of the church after a Wednesday-night service in late June. Hendrix has bonded out of jail; he is due in court August 6, 2012. Story: KAIT, July 16, 2012
Guilty plea: Andre McGant, 53, former volunteer coach, Avalon school (a private Catholic school), Gaithersburg, Maryland, to failing to register as a sex offender. McGant was convicted in 2002 of sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl. Prior to Avalon (which has banned him from coaching), he also worked at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. WUSA notes that McGant “currently faces up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and the possibility of a lifetime of supervised release.” Story: Conservative Babylon, March 6, 2012; WUSA, July 13, 2012
Charged: Clinton Duane “Clint” Pancake, 37, former Director of Student Activities, Warner University (“Central Florida’s Christian University,” whose mission is “to graduate individuals who exemplify academic excellence and Christian character”), Lake Wales, “with receipt, distribution, and transportation of child pornography,” reports the Tampa Division of the FBI. “The complaint alleges that Pancake distributed 14 images of child pornography over the Internet to an undercover agent in March 2012. Pancake admitted to downloading child pornography over the Internet, viewing it on his computer, and deleting it.” The FBI adds: “If convicted on all counts, Pancake faces a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison and a maximum penalty of 40 years in federal prison.” Story: FBI, July 13, 2012. See also: Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office
Arrested again: William Peter “Bill” Planes, a.k.a. William Peter Platanides, 70, founder, St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian School, Tarpon Springs, Florida, for felony contempt of court after missing two court dates earlier this year, one for a deposition and the other for a hearing, related to a 2007 civil suit in which Planes’s company, South Capital Construction, was ordered to pay $97,500 to a software company “for services rendered.” Planes was freed after his lawyer argued that Planes could not be held in contempt because he had not personally received a subpoena.
This is not Planes’s first run-in with the law. As the Tampa Bay Times recounts: “In 2011, Pinellas deputies arrested him on two felony counts of stopping payment with intent to defraud. The charges, which later were dropped, were for bounced paychecks for two employees of the Tarpon Springs Kennel and Veterinary Services, which Planes owned until March 2010. Planes served time in federal prison in the late 1980s after being convicted of embezzling more than $140,000 from a troubled Hollywood, Fla., mortgage company he had been hired to resurrect.”
After opening St. Nicholas Orthodox Christian School, he “then set his eyes on …
Indicted: Aubrey Lee Price, 46, former Baptist minister, Lyons, Georgia, and investment advisor, on one count of bank fraud fror allegedly defrauding the Montgomery Bank & Trust in Ailey, Georgia, “of over $21 million,” according to the Atlanta Division of the FBI. “On July 6, 2012, Georgia regulators closed the Montgomery Bank & Trust and appointed the FDIC as receiver. According to the allegations in the indictment, in 2010, an investment group controlled by Price invested approximately $10 million in the failing Montgomery Bank & Trust (MB&T). Price was then made a director of MB&T and put in charge of investing the bank’s capital.
“Over the next 18 months, Price stole, misappropriated, and embezzled over $21 million from MB&T. To cover up his fraud, Price provided MB&T officials with bogus account statements that falsely indicated the bank’s capital was safely held in an account at a financial services firm. As a result of Price’s alleged fraud upon MB&T, the bank’s cash assets and reserves were depleted. … Price has been missing for over three weeks. Anyone with information on Price’s whereabouts is urged to contact the FBI” — which is offering “a reward of up to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Aubrey Lee Price.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports: “Investors have told the AJC that Price helped start a church in North Fulton and he also had clients join him on mission trips to Venezuela, where his various funds also had investments. [Justin Zegalia, an investment adviser and senior vice president with the Price-controlled Montgomery Asset Management] said one of his clients said Price, purportedly a Baptist minister, even preached at her son’s funeral. ‘He used his Christian faith and his relationship with God as a front to all of this,’ Zegalia said.” Zegalia also thought at one point that Price may have committed suicide, but now thinks he may have faked his own death. Story: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 12, 2012. See also: FBI Wanted Poster
Charged: Joseph V. Pullen, Jr., 59, deacon, Calvary Baptist Church (whose pastor, reports NBC 10, “also serves as a chaplain at the Pemberton Township Police Department”), Pemberton Township, New Jersey, with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, after he allegedly sexually assaulted a girl during the July 8th Sunday church service. PhillyBurbs.com reports: “The investigation also revealed that he assaulted the same victim at another location in the fall of 2011, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. He faces charges of aggravated sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child in that incident.” Pullen, who is married and a grandfather, is being held on $250,000 bail. Story: NBC 10, July 15, 2012; PhillyBurbs.com, July 15, 2012
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