CALHOUN COUNTY
Nov. 21: Michael Mosley, non-support
Nov. 22: Justin Lanier, failure to appear; Michael Mosley, armed robbery with firearm
Nov. 23: George Archie Faircloth, petit theft
Nov. 25: Juan Alejos, criminal mischief, battery
Nov. 26: Stephanie Nelson, obstruction by disguised person; William Johnson, violation of injunction for protection
LIBERTY COUNTY
Nov. 21: Billy Ray Smith, violation of injunction
Nov. 22: Mark White, state VOP
Nov. 26: Stephanie Nelson, hold for CCSO
Nov. 27: Eveiardo Ortiz-Molina, DUI, no valid drivers license
The above individuals were booked into the Calhoun or Liberty County Jail over the past week. Although they have been charged with a crime, they are considered innocent until proven guilty.
Top Stories - Topics from November, 2011
BREAKING NEWS - Episode of "Disappeared" to Feature Missing Duck Hunter
An episode of the television show "Disappeared" will air tonight, Monday, Nov. 28, featuring the story of the duck hunter who vanished on Lake Seminole 11 years ago. The show airs on ID - the Investigation Discovery channel - at 9 p.m. CT. According to the show's website, 31-year-old Jerry Michael Williams is a successful businessman in Tallahassee when he reportedly goes out on a solo duck-hunting trip to Lake Seminole and disappears. Searchers find his truck, his boat and his shotgun, but they can't find Mike. It is assumed he is the victim of a tragic boating accident but officials are perplexed that his body doesn't surface. Mike is the only drowning victim on the Lake who has never come up.
Lake Seminole is infested with alligators, and some of the searchers begin to pass along a frightening theory of what might have happened to Mike. They tell his mother that alligators must have eaten him. But she doesn't buy that explanation. While she hopes her son is alive she begins to think he may have been the victim of murder, not misadventure.
When odd items like a pair of waders, a jacket and a hunting license with Mike's name on it, suddenly pop up on the lake six months after Mike disappears, insurance investigators begin to ask questions. Just a week after they are found, Mike's wife uses the discoveries, as evidence to back up her petition in probate court to have Mike declared legally dead. The judge grants her request, and Mike's widow receives all of Mike's assets and cashes in on life insurance worth at least one and a half million dollars. She later marries Mike's best friend, the insurance agent who sold Mike a million dollar policy just six months before he went missing.
Mike's mother lobbies law officials to investigate Mike's disappearance. It takes three and half years, but finally the Florida Department of Law Enforcement picks up the case and opens an investigation. Other agencies join in but though they find lots of grounds for suspicion of foul play they don't have much hard evidence to go on. All these years later, Mike's widow and best friend aren't talking. Most daunting of all there is no body, no trace at all of Mike. Without proof of foul play, an insurance fraud investigation sputters and dies. Yet investigators become more convinced than ever that Mike Williams is a victim of foul play and that the original story that Mike disappeared on Lake Seminole was an elaborate setup, created to distract law enforcement and his family from the truth about what really happened to him.
Tune in tonight for more on this story area residents have been following for over a decade.
BREAKING NEWS - Hiers Found Guilty of Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud
FORMER BANK DIRECTOR CONVICTED OF
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT BANK FRAUD
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA - Jed Hiers, 50, of Bristol, Florida, was convicted today of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and nine counts of making false entries in bank records with the intent to deceive bank examiners. Hiers served as the president of C&L Bank of Bristol in the 1990s. After C&L was purchased by The Bank in 1999, Hiers continued to serve as president of the Bristol branch. In 2001, he was appointed to The Bank’s Board of Directors and promoted to the position of Florida Regional President.
Evidence presented at trial established that between 1999 and 2004, Hiers conspired to make millions of dollars in loans and other extensions of credit to borrowers who he knew were unable to repay. Hiers hid the bad loans from bank management and federal examiners by falsifying customer financial information, using overdraft accounts to make payments on the borrowers’ existing loans, and using the proceeds from loans to third parties to make payments on the debts of insolvent bank customers. The government also presented evidence that Hiers had concealed the true financial picture of the bank from examiners and bank management by falsely representing that certain substandard loans had been sold to another financial institution, when, in fact, Hiers had entered separate buy-back agreements in which he agreed The Bank would repurchase the loans at the buyer’s request. In an examination begun shortly after Hiers’ employment with The Bank terminated, examiners classified more than $20 million in loans in the Florida region as losses.
Hiers faces a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment for conspiracy and a maximum sentence of thirty years’ imprisonment on each of the nine false entry counts.
United States Attorney Pamela Marsh praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, whose joint investigation led to the convictions in this case. “Mr. Heirs’ fraudulent actions caused The Bank to lose millions of dollars. As a bank officer, he not only violated the law, he violated the trust of the community. I am grateful for the tremendous efforts of the prosecutor and the case agents in this case, as well as for the resources committed by the agencies during a complicated investigation.”
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rhew-Miller. Sentencing is set for February.
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT BANK FRAUD
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA - Jed Hiers, 50, of Bristol, Florida, was convicted today of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and nine counts of making false entries in bank records with the intent to deceive bank examiners. Hiers served as the president of C&L Bank of Bristol in the 1990s. After C&L was purchased by The Bank in 1999, Hiers continued to serve as president of the Bristol branch. In 2001, he was appointed to The Bank’s Board of Directors and promoted to the position of Florida Regional President. Evidence presented at trial established that between 1999 and 2004, Hiers conspired to make millions of dollars in loans and other extensions of credit to borrowers who he knew were unable to repay. Hiers hid the bad loans from bank management and federal examiners by falsifying customer financial information, using overdraft accounts to make payments on the borrowers’ existing loans, and using the proceeds from loans to third parties to make payments on the debts of insolvent bank customers. The government also presented evidence that Hiers had concealed the true financial picture of the bank from examiners and bank management by falsely representing that certain substandard loans had been sold to another financial institution, when, in fact, Hiers had entered separate buy-back agreements in which he agreed The Bank would repurchase the loans at the buyer’s request. In an examination begun shortly after Hiers’ employment with The Bank terminated, examiners classified more than $20 million in loans in the Florida region as losses.
Hiers faces a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment for conspiracy and a maximum sentence of thirty years’ imprisonment on each of the nine false entry counts.
United States Attorney Pamela Marsh praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, whose joint investigation led to the convictions in this case. “Mr. Heirs’ fraudulent actions caused The Bank to lose millions of dollars. As a bank officer, he not only violated the law, he violated the trust of the community. I am grateful for the tremendous efforts of the prosecutor and the case agents in this case, as well as for the resources committed by the agencies during a complicated investigation.”
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rhew-Miller. Sentencing is set for February.
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