Man who cashed out $3M in loans and checks from Gray, Georgia bank pleads guilty
The man accused of fraudulently cashing out $3 million in loans from Morris Bank in Gray pleaded guilty in federal court Monday morning, court records show.
Ronnie Atkinson, the owner of the timber harvesting company Ronnie Atkinson, LLC, was accused April 30 of taking over $3 million in loans and checks between 2018 and 2022 by bringing in friends and relatives and using other people’s information, according to his indictment.
He pleaded guilty to both of those charges, Melissa Hodges, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia, confirmed. Judge Marc Treadwell set an unsecured bond at $20,000 and ordered Atkinson to follow his probation conditions until his sentencing, which is scheduled for Aug. 6, court records show.
Hodges told The Telegraph that Atkinson faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine and five years of supervised release for his conspiracy to commit bank fraud charge. He faces a mandatory sentence of two years in prison that will run consecutively with his other charge, a $1 million fine and one year of supervised release for his aggravated identity theft charge.
The accusation
Atkinson began taking out loans with Morris Bank in March 2018 to buy equipment, but approximately a year later, he had exceeded the $500,000 loan limit and his loans were graded substandard, which means there was a “well-defined weakness or weaknesses that could jeopardize collection,” court records show.
Morris Bank policy only lets a customer take out up to $500,000 in loans from the market president and, if the customer goes over the limit, the market president has to obtain approval from the bank’s senior credit officer. The market president also has to evaluate the customer’s financial information, the purpose of the loan, collateral and ability to repay.
Further, if the customer with a substandard grade wanted to take out a loan of over $50,000, a credit administration officer or a member of the credit team has to approve it, according to the indictment.
Atkinson brought in friends and relatives to appear as straw borrowers for loans. They’d take out a loan for his benefit to circumvent the process, the indictment said.
“(The market president) thus let Atkinson exceed his $500,000 lending limit without the proper approvals by making it appear these loans belonged to a different (person),” the indictment states. “(The market president) also did not seek the required approval for (Atkinson’s) loans that were graded substandard.”
For the loans that listed something he wanted to buy, he provided a bill of sale that listed the item, its price and the seller, but the indictment established that most of the bills of sale were fraudulent. They either featured an inflated price for the item or listed people who didn’t sell anything to Atkinson or anyone associated with him.
Morris Bank issued the loans directly to the seller, so Atkinson instructed the sellers to cash the check and provide the money to him or one of his relatives, according to the indictment.
Atkinson took those loans to Kevin’s Check Cashing in Macon. He would bring the check’s listed payee with him for them to cash the check and give him the money after.
For checks he cashed in which the purported seller didn’t sell him anything, Atkinson provided “a picture of an identification card belonging to the person whom the check would be made out to in order to cash the check without the person being present,” according to the indictment. The identification belonged to previous or current employees who gave him their licenses.
This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 3:12 PM.
