Jul 20
2012
2012
Three defendants in the wide-ranging AmeriFirst companies' fraud were sentenced to federal prison on July 20 in U.S. District Court in Dallas.
Dennis Woods Bowden of Farmers Branch, the chief operations officer of AmeriFirst, was sentenced to 16 years in prison and ordered to pay $23 million in restitution.
On July 27, John Porter Priest of Ocala, Fla., was sentenced to one year in prison and Fred Howard, of Tarpon Springs, Fla., was sentenced to five years.
Each man was ordered to pay $4.7 million restitution. Dallas-based AmeriFirst sold $50 million worth of fraudulent debt obligations to more than 500 investors in Texas and Florida.