Last suspect pleads guilty in Muscogee Superior Court Clerk scandal
The last suspect has pleaded guilty in the multi-defendant Muscogee Superior Court clerk scandal that authorities said may have cost taxpayers over $1 million.
Rosalee Bassi, the mother-in-law of alleged ringleader and longtime Superior Court Clerk supervisor Willie Demps, pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon before U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land.
Bassi was to plead guilty earlier, but Judge Land would not accept the plea then because Bassi, speaking through an interpreter, would not admit she committed a crime. Bassi is from Cameroon, and though she can speak some English, her native language is French, and she needs an interpreter for official court proceedings, attorneys said.
She pleaded guilty to interstate transportation of stolen property, alleging she took cash derived from two Superior Court clerk checks from Columbus to Phenix City between Sept. 24 and Oct. 11, 2018. One check was for $4,320, and the other $3,868, according to her plea.
Though her plea involved only those two checks, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Helmick told the court Demps contacted Bassi 16 times between September 2015 and February 2019, asking her to cash checks that together totaled $61,896, and Bassi took the cash to her home in Phenix City each time.
Bassi faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison plus a fine of up to $250,000, and must pay back the stolen money in restitution.
Bassi also faces possible deportation, authorities said.
Defense attorney Pete Temesgen declined to comment on the plea. Helmick said she was not free to comment on the case.
Details of the scheme
Federal prosecutors have alleged Demps wired more than $500,000 to contacts in Africa between 2010 and 2018, most of it to Cameroon. He also sent funds to Nigeria, Senegal, Gabon, Gambia, Ecuador and Canada, they said.
Demps pleaded guilty Feb. 2 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.
Judge Land has set Demps’ sentencing for 9:30 a.m. June 2, when Demps’ accomplices in the scheme also will be sentenced at the same time.
Bassi and six other codefendants 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 when Demps pleaded guilty, prosecutors offered a fresh assessment of the losses.
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. 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, she said then.
Demps managed funds for which he was authorized to write checks on Superior Court Clerk accounts at area banks. He recruited others to help him cash those checks, sometimes meeting them outside the bank branches, or outside the Columbus Government Center where he worked, authorities said. He took blank checks, wrote them to his accomplices and signed them, before they took the checks to be cashed.
The accounts he oversaw held court funds derived from felony and misdemeanor fines, forfeitures and condemnations. The accounts were at Synovus Financial Corp., SunTrust Bank and Colony Bank.
Demps, 64, was arrested Aug. 18, 2021, after he and his codefendants’ 71-count indictment alleged wire fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and transporting stolen goods and money.
Besides Bassi, 66, others involved in the 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 Columbu.
- Dereen Porch, 43, also known as Dereen Fitzgerald, of Columbus
This story was originally published March 1, 2022 at 4:46 PM.