Ex-supervisor who scammed millions from Columbus Superior Court Clerk office pleads
Longtime Muscogee Superior Court Clerk supervisor Willie Demps pleaded guilty Tuesday in the fraudulent check writing scheme federal agents thought plundered more than $1 million from public accounts.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Helmick told the court Tuesday that the total Demps cost the county likely comes to around $6.8 million, when cash funds he failed to deposit for the clerk’s office are included.
Demps pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and two counts of tax evasion. He faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine on the first charge, and five years in prison and a $100,000 fine on each of the tax evasion counts.
U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land ordered Demps is to pay $1,323,045 in restitution to the clerk’s office, and to pay the IRS $359,604 for unpaid taxes. He set Demps’ sentencing for 10 a.m. June 2, and said Demps’ accomplices in the scheme will be sentenced at the same time.
Demps, whose full name is Willie Samuel Demps Jr., is 64 years old. He retired from the clerk’s office before his arrest last year.
His plea leaves only one defendant in the case, Rosalee Bassi, his mother in law. She also is negotiating a guilty plea.
She and six others initially were accused of helping Demps steal at least $467,000 from accounts that Demps managed while working nearly 30 years for the clerk’s office, part of that time as chief deputy clerk.
But authorities gave a more extensive assessment of the loss Tuesday: Helmick said Demps wrote 330 fraudulent checks totaling $1.3 million between October 19, 2010 and Nov. 27, 2019, and deposited only $210 out of $5.5 million in cash paid to the clerk’s office over that time span.
As chief deputy clerk, Demps managed funds for which he was authorized to write checks at area banks. He took blank office checks, wrote them out and signed them, and gave them to accomplices outside the banks, or outside the Columbus Government Center where he worked, authorities said.
The accounts at Synovus Financial Corp., SunTrust Bank and Colony Bank held court funds derived from felony and misdemeanor fines, forfeitures and condemnations. One bank cashed so many checks that Demps’ phone number was posted by tellers’ windows, so they could call him for authorization, Helmick said.
The prosecutor said Demps also controlled deposits made in cash to the clerk’s office, where he kept the money in a safe he left unlocked, even when he was not there.
Demps used the money for his own personal expenses, sent it overseas via wire, or wagered it on casino gambling, authorities said. Helmick said any funds missing before 2010 cannot be documented because clerk’s office records for previous years are not available.
Who was in charge?
Personnel records the Ledger-Enquirer obtained show Demps was hired in 1989. He served under three elected Muscogee Superior Court clerks: Linda Pierce, Ann Hardman and Danielle Forte, who currently holds the office.
Pierce held the position for 28 years, through seven consecutive four-year terms, before she lost to Hardman in a May 2016 primary. Hardman died in office in March 2018, and her chief lieutenant, Shasta Glover, took charge.
Glover ran for election, but lost to Forte in November 2018. Formerly a prosecutor with the district attorney’s office, Forte requested a “transitional audit” of the clerk’s accounts on Nov. 26, 2018. Columbus Council approved her audit request the next month, but the audit did not begin until September 2019, she said.
Demps “abruptly retired” on Dec. 2, 2019, authorities said.
He was arrested Aug. 18, 2021, after a 71-count indictment alleged wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and transporting stolen goods and money. That’s when prosecutors alleged the theft amounted to $467,000, though they later said significantly more government funds were missing.
Demps was indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, 35 counts of wire fraud and 34 counts of interstate transportation of stolen property. Had he been convicted on those counts, he would have faced up to 30 years on each conspiracy charge, 20 years on each count of wire fraud and 10 years on each interstate transportation charge, authorities said.
Instead Demps pleaded to fresh allegations Tuesday, and his indictment was set aside. His attorney, Charles Cox of Macon, Georgia, declined to comment afterward.
Besides Bassi, 65, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, others charged in the alleged scheme were:
- Terry McBride, 43, of Smiths Station, Alabama.
- Lamarcus Palmer, 34, of Smiths Station, Alabama.
- George Cook, 33, of Columbus.
- Samuel Cole, 72, of Columbus.
- Curtis Porch, 48, of Columbus.
- Dereen Porch, 43, also known as Dereen Fitzgerald, of Columbus.
This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 10:59 AM.