Alabama Supreme Court halts special investigation into controversial Mabel Amos Trust Fund

The Alabama Supreme Court on Friday canceled a court-ordered investigation by a special counsel and a certified public accountant (CPA) into alleged self-dealing among the trustees of a scholarship fund for needy children established by former Alabama Secretary of State Mabel Amos.

Montgomery County District Judge Greg Griffin appointed special master on the case in November. Griffin appointed retired Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Charles Price as special counsel. He also hired James White, Sr., a Birmingham-based certified public accountant, to audit the trust’s accounts and records.

Associate Judge Brady Mendheim said in a unanimous opinion released Friday: “In summary, the court exceeded its discretion in ordering all matters in these cases to be referred to a special counsel.”

“As for the referral of the cases to a non-jury trial, the court did not indicate that an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ would have made the referral necessary,” Mendheim said.

Allen Dodd, an appointed assistant attorney general of Alabama, said in a hearing in Montgomery County District Court in November that the state, the fund’s board members and the trustee of the trust, Regions Bank, were on the verge of reach an agreement in this case. The fund’s board members are John Bell, Rick Clifton and Alabama Ethics Commission Executive Director Tom Albritton.

The Mabel Amos Trust Fund is worth about $8.2 millionprimarily due to the oil and gas wells on its property in south Alabama. The purpose of the fund is to “fund or provide scholarships to deserving young men and women of this State (Alabama) … to enable them to attend an educational institution.”

Byron Mathews, an attorney representing Tyra Lindsey, a 10th-grader at Hillcrest High School in Evergreen, and her mother, Denese Rankin, asked Griffin in November to appoint a special counsel. Lindsey hopes to use the fund to apply for a scholarship to attend college after high school.

“The Supreme Court found that the district court’s referral to special counsel was excessive because it included all of the issues arising in the case. It should be noted that the court’s amended referral order that was the subject of the Supreme Court’s decision was a proposed order by the Regions defendants. The court left open the option for the district court to re-issue the referral to special counsel and narrow its scope. Hopefully, this time, the district court will not rely on the work of Regions’ counsel,” Mathews told 1819 News on Friday.

A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Decision – Distributed Mabel Amos by Caleb Taylor on Scribd

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