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Small bank in Ga. shut down; 48th U.S. bank failure this year
Regulators have shut down a small bank in Georgia, boosting to 48 the number of U.S. bank failures this year as the economy struggled and bad loans piled up.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized Mountain Heritage Bank in Clayton, Ga., with $103.7 million in assets and $89.6 million in deposits, on Friday. First American Bank and Trust Co., based in Athens, Ga., agreed to assume the assets and deposits of the failed bank.
The failure of Mountain Heritage Bank is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund $41.1 million. Associated Press
Former media mogul headed back to prison
Conrad Black, once a media mogul whose newspaper empire spanned several continents, is headed back to prison after a federal judge ruled Friday that he had not served enough time for defrauding investors.
Judge Amy St. Eve sentenced Black to 31/2 years in prison. But prosecutors say he will be given credit for more than two years he already had served, meaning the 66-year-old will go back for a little more than a year.
Black, whose empire once included the Chicago Sun-Times and The Daily Telegraph of London, served part of the sentence before being freed on bail to pursue what would be partially successful appeals.
St. Eve said Friday that Black had "violated the trust" of his shareholders. "As you stand before me today, I still scratch my head as to why you engaged in this conduct," she said. Associated Press
