ATLANTA — Only Channel 2 Action News was there on Wednesday as Georgia’s Secretary of State returned more than $8,400 in campaign contributions from First Liberty Building and Loan.
Federal investigators accuse First Liberty of being a $140 million Ponzi scheme.
Secretary Brad Raffensperger told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot that he got about $8,400 from them in 2018 but still wanted to return the money anyway. He wrote a check to the court receiver in charge of the case.
He’s encouraging other politicians to do the same.
“I think everyone needs to have a moral compass, and my moral compass said people are hurting and I need to give this money back,” Raffensperger said.
Elliot was there last week when First Liberty’s founder and owner Edwin Brant Frost IV surrendered his keys to the receiver and was also there when the receiver and his team removed boxes of hard drives and financial records from the First Liberty Offices in downtown Newnan.
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Frost promoted First Liberty on conservative media, including paid commercials on the Erick Erickson show on WSB Radio, among others.
Investors say he went to church groups and encouraged them to invest. But feds say Frost kept millions for himself and his family, and used more than $500,000 to donate to candidates and political action committees.
“Many of them are, you know, solid, you know, Christians, like myself, and they leaned into that, because that’s what First Liberty was selling, that they were Christians and they would look out for you, and at the end of the day, they were just looking out for themselves,” Raffensperger said.
The securities division of Raffensperger’s office is also investigating First Liberty, and he introduced its director, Noula Zaharis.
He said she’s already talking with potential victims.
“She’s relentless, and she’s going to make sure she’s going to get as much money back for hard-working Georgia families,” Raffensperger said.
In a statement through his attorney on Friday, Frost took responsibility for First Liberty and said he wanted to apologize for misleading people.
Currently, this is a civil investigation, but sources confirm the FBI is investigating this as well.
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