Judge freezes assets of former Georgia regent’s company

A federal judge on Thursday froze the assets of former Georgia Board of Regents member Dean Alford’s company, siding with attorneys representing more than three dozen people who say he took $6 million they invested in his business venture.

Alford is the main defendant in a civil lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court in Middle Georgia. The plaintiffs say Alford ran a Ponzi scheme involving a project to build a waste-to-energy plant at the city of Augusta’s landfill. Alford is the president of Allied Energy Services, a Rockdale County-based business he founded in 1977. Most of the plaintiffs live in the Columbus area.

U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land wrote in his preliminary injunction that Alford is “prohibited from withdrawing, transferring, deducting or otherwise taking action to interfere with its financial accounts in a manner that would reduce the balances in those accounts.”

Efforts to contact an attorney listed in court records as representing Alford in the civil case were not successful Friday.

Alford resigned his seat on the Board of Regents in October the same day the Georgia Attorney General’s Office said he filed false paperwork and forged a university employee’s signature to try to get about $2.2 million from a company for work he said was done by his business. Alford was charged with criminal attempt to commit theft by taking and racketeering.

Robert E. Wilson, a former DeKalb County district attorney who is representing Alford in the criminal case, has said he and Alford are cooperating with the investigative effort.