by Ty Tagami | Apr 23, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Federal prosecutors charged the founder of a Georgia investment vehicle with wire fraud Thursday in connection with an alleged Ponzi scheme.
Edwin Brant Frost IV, owner and president of the defunct First Liberty Building and Loan, allegedly scammed those in his orbit in what the FBI and prosecutors described as a “classic” Ponzi scheme, using new investor funds to pay earlier investors while concealing significant financial losses.
“Frost abused the trust of his clients, family, and friends by allegedly soliciting investors with promises of sizable returns, while knowing the money raised would instead be used for his personal expenses and to pay early investors to maintain the illusion of profits,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said in a statement Thursday after Frost IV was arraigned in federal court in Atlanta.
Frost IV, 68, of Newnan, was released on bail after entering a plea of not guilty.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger investigated.
Frost IV is accused of steering over $570,000 to political contributions. Last year, Raffensperger’s office called on recipients to return the money.
Frost’s son, Brant Frost V, was chairman of the Coweta County Republican Party.
Hertzberg said Frost IV “represented” to investors that they would be compensated by borrowers who paid fees on “bridge” loans.
Instead, prosecutors said, First Liberty used investor money to pay off early investors and to fund more than $5 million of “personal and sometimes extravagant expenditures.”
Frost IV spent over $230,000 to rent a vacation home in Maine, over $140,000 to buy jewelry, $20,800 for a Patek Philippe watch and over $2 million on credit card bills, prosecutors claimed.
They said Frost IV did not disclose that borrowers had defaulted and that he continued to finance at least one of the defaulted companies.
Herztberg’s office said Frost IV raised at least $140 million from at least 300 investors.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 23, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — After Georgia lawmakers failed to act on their self-imposed deadline to overhaul the state’s election machinery, a panel of appointees to the board that regulates elections narrowly voted Wednesday to consider a rule that would require hand-marked paper ballots.
Two years ago, the Legislature passed a law that makes the current voting system illegal starting July 1. The law bans the use of computer-generated codes to tabulate votes. The current system relies on a tailored Quick Response, or QR, code that kiosks print after each voter completes their ballot.
In the two years since they banned QR codes, lawmakers did not authorize an alternative system. Instead, they blamed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for not finding an affordable option. The Republican pointed back at them, saying it was their job to designate and pay for a new system.
The State Election Board met in a hastily convened online session Wednesday. After debating whether they had the authority to step in, they voted 3-2 to hold a working meeting next week with the Coalition for Good Governance.
That is the group that petitioned for the new rule. The Coalition wants to use the state’s emergency backup balloting system for the general election in November, despite concerns from local election officials that they lack time to implement it at scale.
That system, intended for power outages and computer failures, uses preprinted ballots that voters mark by hand. Scanners then tally their votes using the marks.
The Coalition’s executive director, Marilyn Marks, said at the hearing that such an overhaul would not be “a piece of cake” but would be possible.
She urged the board to ignore the July 1 deadline on QR codes, arguing that the system already violates other federal and state laws for secret and secure balloting.
If the state fails to implement a different system soon, she argued, it will undermine confidence in election integrity and invite lawsuits, making the outcome of elections contested and uncertain.
“With all the attention and with an entire state operating a system that is not in legal compliance, Georgia’s begging for problems,” Marks said.
The election board members were divided on what to do next, with some afraid of overstepping their legal authority.
The chairman, John Fervier, who was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp, said there was “a more than reasonable chance” that Kemp would call lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special legislative session to solve the problem.
“I think this has been a legislative issue all along. They created this problem,” Fervier said. “They haven’t resolved this problem, and they deserve a right to resolve the problem before we do.”
He voted against the proposal to collaborate with Marks’ group.
But two other Republican appointees, Salleigh Grubbs and vice chair Janice Johnston, were more concerned about the approaching deadline.
Johnston said she supported switching to paper ballots as soon as possible.
Grubbs made a motion to collaborate with Marks’ group next week. The goal would be to refine the language that the board would adopt as a rule that applied to all Georgia election directors. No Republican would second it, and Fervier was about to move on, when Sara Tindall Ghazal, the panel’s sole Democratic appointee, seconded it.
The subsequent voting was by voice, with all members off screen except Grubbs, who could be seen voting yes. Johnston confirmed to Fervier that she had also voted yes, and Fervier said he was voting no.
It was unclear whether the third supporting vote was voiced by Ghazal or by Janelle King, an appointee of the Republican-led state House.
With that vote recorded, up to two members of the board can now help Marks’ group craft a proposed rule.
They are up against a hard deadline. The board would have to hold another special meeting next week for a formal vote to initiate rulemaking to publish a new rule by July 1.
The process takes so long because the board must open any proposed rule for a 30-day public comment period before taking final action. The last scheduled opportunity to approve a new rule before July is the board’s scheduled meeting in June.
To meet that deadline while adhering to the public-review requirement, the board must transmit a petition for rulemaking to the Legislature by May 4.
“It felt like a good, productive step today,” Marks said after the hearing. She said she hoped for a “robust” public discussion on the petition.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 22, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — People who want to protect the Okefenokee delivered a petition with 26,000 signatures Wednesday to a company they fear might mine near the swamp, asking for a permanent pledge not to.
Last year, conservationists assembled about $60 million to buy a stretch of land adjacent to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge that was owned by a company with plans to harvest titanium dioxide, a mineral used to whiten everything from toothpaste to snacks.
The Conservation Fund may have neutralized one threat by acquiring Twin Pines Minerals’ land, but environmentalists say it was not the only property on Trail Ridge that could invite mining.
They have been targeting Chemours, which mines materials such as titanium dioxide to feed its global chemicals business and is active in the region.
“We know that interest in mining Trail Ridge persists even though the Okefenokee Swamp is too precious to risk for an abundant mineral that is used to make paint, toothpaste and Oreo filling white,” Jennette Gayer, director of Environment Georgia, said in a statement Wednesday.
Her group and others delivered their petition to Chemours on Wednesday, Earth Day.
The company seemed unmoved.
A spokeswoman said a prior Chemours statement on the topic still stands.
In that 2022 statement, the company said it was committed to responsible mining with “thorough planning and design” to protect sensitive features, such as wetlands and groundwater. It said Chemours had no plans to mine on Trail Ridge because it had mineral flowing from enough other sites in Georgia and Florida to satisfy demand “well into the 2030s.”
The statement also said Chemours had no intention of doing business with Twin Pines for five or 10 years, which became moot after the purchase by conservationists last year.
That absence of a new commitment disappointed Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee.
“What has been so frustrating is that they want to preserve the option to extract and process minerals from the Okefenokee for toothpaste and junk food,” he said by email.
He pointed to a 2024 article in The Current in which the owner of other land near the Okefenokee supported the idea of Chemours mining nearby.
Marks said Chemours’ 2022 statement about safely mining is outdated given a study last year by the University of Georgia. Researchers there found more evidence that the Okefenokee is linked to an underlying aquifer and that drawing water from the aquifer would effectively draw water from the swamp.
Twin Pines Minerals had contended that its plans to draw an average of 1.4 million gallons of water a day from the aquifer would not harm the swamp.
Environmentalists say lowering the aquifer would wreak havoc on a rich ecosystem that is among the best preserved blackwater wetlands in the world and home to endangered and threatened species.
They also say mining could harm a part of the swamp that will soon be open to visitors.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources was awarded $7 million from a stewardship fund to buy nearly 4,000 acres of the land that The Conservation Fund purchased from Twin Pines, according to Environment Georgia.
The land will be part of a new Wildlife Management Area that will open to the public next year.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 22, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Democrat who made history as the first African American to chair the House Agriculture Committee, has died, his office announced Wednesday.
Scott, 80, had represented the 13th congressional district for nearly a quarter century, representing much of the area south and east of Atlanta.
“To the public, he was a devoted leader who spent more than 50 years serving his community, the state of Georgia, and the American people,” his office said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “He will be remembered not only for his leadership but for his kindness, compassion, and enduring impact on those around him.”
David Albert Scott was born on a farm in Aynor, S.C., a month after Germany’s surrender in World War II and two months before Japan would surrender.
He graduated from Florida A&M University and earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and them started an advertising business.
Three years after finishing his studies, he worked on Andrew Young’s successful congressional campaign.
Two years later, in 1974, he won his own election to the Georgia House, serving there nearly a decade before switching to the state Senate.
Scott rose in the state Senate to chair the powerful Rules Committee, a role he held when Rep. Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, was still learning her way around the Gold Dome.
“I will always remember the grace he showed me,” said Hugley, now the House minority leader. She said in a statement that he was “a fighter,” and she applauded his role in passing the Affordable Care Act after he reached Congress. “He will be missed.”
Scott served in the state Senate until winning his own successful congressional campaign in 2002.
In 2020, the U.S. House Democratic caucus named him chairman of the Agriculture Committee, a key position for a lawmaker from a state like Georgia where agribusiness is significant.
He was up for election this year, when a new crop of graduates from Georgia’s General Assembly decided to challenge him.
Scott faced six opponents in the May 19 primary, one each from the state House and Senate.
Early voting starts Monday. That does not leave enough time to remove Scott’s name from ballots, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office.
Voters will see notices at polling places that say any votes cast for Scott will not count, a spokesman for Raffensperger’s office said. Similar notices will be sent to absentee by mail voters, the spokesman said, adding that Gov. Brian Kemp will call a special election to fill the remainder of Scott’s term.
But Scott’s death put politics on hold.
“Today, politics fades and humanity remains,” said Everton Blair Jr., a former Gwinnett County school board member who is running in the Democratic primary to succeed Scott.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a statement that “Georgia is a better place thanks to the service of Congressman Scott.”
Scott was married to Alfredia Aaron Scott. They had two daughters, Dayna and Marcye, and two grandchildren, Kimani and Kaylin.
by Ty Tagami | Apr 22, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — An extended spell of dry weather has led to major wildfires in South Georgia, prompting Gov. Brian Kemp to declare a state of emergency covering more than half the state.
Kemp’s order on Wednesday covers 91 of Georgia’s 159 counties. It will be in effect for 30 days and includes a ban on burning yard debris and agricultural material there.
“With much of Georgia remaining in extreme drought conditions, wildfires have already surpassed the state’s 5-year average and continue to spread,” Kemp said in a statement.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved assistance grants for two locations: the Pineland Road Fire in Clinch and Echols Counties and the Highway 82 Wildfire in Brantley County.
“We are praying for the families who have lost their homes in these devastating conditions, as well as for the first responders working around the clock,” Kemp said.
For current wildfire information and emergency updates, visit gatrees.org/current-wildfire-information-and-resources/. For a map of active fires and response, visit georgiafc.firesponse.com/public/
