Fraud Conviction Centered Around Cumming Home

An Atlanta man was convicted of bank fraud charges after a trial in which a home in Cumming played a significant role, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

William “Rusty” Beamon, the one-time vice president and foreclosure liquidation department head for Appalachian Community Bank, was found guilty of five counts of bank fraud by a federal jury earlier this month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He has yet to be sentenced.

In 2009, Beamon hired a real estate agent to find a renter for a home he claimed to own in Cumming, when in fact that home was on his bank’s foreclosed properties list. Beamon pocketed $20,000 in rent and security deposits on the house he claimed to own, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

In addition, Beamon used his position at the bank to sell some of its properties to a company owned by his wife and to a shell company he owned. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the sales were well below market value of the property.

“Bank fraud comes in many forms but when it comes in the form of the bank’s own vice president, it becomes all the more intolerable,” J. Britt Johnson, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Atlanta Field Office, said in a statement.

“Mr. Beamon, as a banking executive, should have protected his bank and its assets from fraud but instead he saw an opportunity to enrich his own bank account. The federal sentencing handed down to Mr. Beamon will be not only the closing note to one man’s banking career but also to the bank that he caused to fail.”

Appalachian Community Bank was forced to close in March of 2010 for poor financial health, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.