Ron Sailor, Jr., Sentenced to 5+ Years
Former Georgia State Representative Ron Sailor, Jr., was sentenced last week to 5 years, 3 months imprisonment by United States District Judge Jack T. Camp of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on charges of money laundering and mail fraud. Sailor was further ordered to forfeit property worth $181,802.24.
Sailor represented District 93, consisting of parts of DeKalb and Rockdale Counties. He originally pled guilty to money laundering charges in March of this year for laundering drug proceeds. Sailor had met with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a drug dealer and had informed the agent that he was looking for a drug dealer to give him $300,000 which Sailor would launder for a fee. An agent subsequently met with Sailor and provided him with approximately $375,000, and Sailor returned the funds to the agent in the form of checks which falsely stated that they were for consulting work, and which had Sailor's fee deducted. Sailor resigned from the General Assembly following his guilty plea.
Following his plea, Sailor agreed to cooperate with authorities in an unrelated investigation. However, he also attempted to obtain a $250,000 loan by using the Greater New Light
Missionary Baptist Church, on Campbellton Road in Southwest Atlanta, where he was a pastor, as collateral, without the church's permission. Sailor caused the church's corporate registration to be changed to show himself as the Chief Executive Officer, and created a false resolution of the church's Board of Directors authorizing the church to use the property to obtain a loan and Sailor to bind the church to the loan, forging the signature of the church's Secretary on the resolution. Sailor also forged false church by-laws, falsely signing for the Secretary and embossing the by-laws with a fraudulent church seal. Sailor presented the fraudulent documents to Georgia Business Capital Ban, which proceeded to lend Sailor $250,000 with the church's property as collateral. Sailor used $141,386.72of the proceeds to pay his personal expenses. Additional charges were filed against Sailor for this conduct, which Sailor pled guilty to in June of this year.
