VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — The former president of a south Georgia bank has been sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay $3.9 million in restitution to government agencies saddled with losses from fraudulent loans.
Gary Patton Hall Jr., former president of the Tifton Banking Company, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court. He pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in December.
Prosecutors say Hall hid past-due loans from other bank executives and federal regulators, resulting in millions of dollars in losses after delinquent loans were renewed. They say Hall in 2009 obtained $3.8 million in taxpayer-funded bailout money from the government to help the bank recover from losses caused by his own acts of fraud.
Tifton Banking Company was closed in November 2010 before it could repay the bailout money.
