Phony preacher ran fraud empire from jail

A month into the job, in May 2004, another employee let Henderson in on a secret: Their boss was a convict. She checked the Internet and discovered "Dr. W. Sherrod Milton" was Wayne Milton, convicted mortgage fraud artist, a man who wasn't going to let a prison stint stop him from his career of separating people from their money.

During his 17 months in the minimum-security federal prison camp in Atlanta, Milton sneaked out at least 50 times to conspire on a new wave of mortgage fraud that ultimately approached $20 million, according to court documents.

Henderson said she went to Atlanta police, the Fulton County District Attorney's office, the IRS, the FBI, the Georgia Department of Labor, the Bureau of Prisons. Even Channel 11.

"Nobody believed me, " she recounted this week. "It's such an amazing story."

Actually, the story bordered on unbelievable, in which a 350-pound-plus confidence man allegedly bribed guards to repeatedly slip out of prison overnight to operate a fraud operation, eat Church's Fried Chicken and meet his wife. By dawn he was back in his prison bed.

Last week, Milton, 32, of Stone Mountain was sentenced to 20 years on charges of escape from federal prison, conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud, grant fraud and aggravated assault on a deputy U.S. Marshal.

The latter offense came in 2005 when Milton tried to run over the lawman who was attempting to arrest him in South Georgia. Milton was shot three times but still led authorities on a car chase at speeds over 100 mph. More on that later.

A 'silky' man of God 

Milton says he bribed four guards about $20,000 to look the other way when he left, said his attorney Howard Kieffer.

Sneaking out of the prison camp is difficult during the day, Kieffer said, because of frequent prisoner counts. So the guards allegedly worked it out so Milton would leave between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. and also sneaked in cellphones he could use to run his business.

Asked about the bribery allegations, Traci Billingsley, a federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, said, "The whole issue is under and continues to be under investigation."

Henderson believes guards tipped off Milton to her accusations.

In mid-May 2004, Milton started calling from the prison camp, threatening Henderson and her son for going to authorities, she said in an affidavit. He knew where she lived, he told her. After all, he was her boss.

According to the affidavit, "It took four weeks after my last phone call to prison authorities that they finally seized the cellphones from Milton and put him on 'lock down' until he was released for 'good behavior' in late July.' "

Once he was released from prison, Milton, 32, stepped right back into his scamming ways.

Milton was originally sentenced to two years, nine months in prison in 2002 for a wide-ranging mortgage fraud conspiracy in DeKalb County. He served two earlier state prison stints for fraud.

This time, Milton had a head start on continuing his illicit ways. He had built the infrastructure for his newest mortgage scheme while in prison and was set to go big time during this run. He had mixed his financial acumen with a new twist: he was a man of God from Albany who had done well and wanted to spread the wealth to other churches.

"He was very silky, well-dressed, flashy clothes. Alligator shoes," said Onzer Brown, a North Carolina preacher taken by Milton. "He had it together, man."

In court last week, prosecutor Gale McKenzie documented a series of complicated financial activities orchestrated by Milton.

While in prison, Milton, a 10th-grade dropout, helped create Aaccess Real Estate Properties, which he touted as "one of the nation's fastest growing property investment companies."

Milton started finagling others for their personal identity information to qualify for mortgage loans.

At the same time, he helped found The Apex Group, LLC., which promised to broker hundreds of millions of dollars of grants to churches, businesses and non-profit organizations.

Tale of reform rang hollow

Sometimes Milton called himself the bishop of Rebirth Cathedral Ministries when he approached churches. (A Web site for that church remains but the phone number is disconnected.) Other times, he said he was senior pastor of Gethsemane Christian or Call to Conquer churches. He was in the process of purchasing church buildings in Decatur and Marietta, according to prosecutors. His aim was to skim money off the top.

In October 2004, five months after Henderson's first call to authorities, an FBI agent called her. The agent had helped prosecute Milton before and had been informed of Henderson's accusations, she said.

"He said, "I thought he had changed, I brought him Bibles up there," she recalls.

Discovered, Milton hit the road. According to prosecutors, Milton approached churches in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut and Illinois promising to deliver massive amounts of grant funding in exchange for some comparatively small upfront "administrative fees."

Brown, the evangelist from North Carolina who drives a semi truck and runs a painting business, said Milton approached him with a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," a $2.5 million grant to nurture small, struggling businesses. Brown could open a truck-driving school.

Milton told prospective "grantees" the money came from big business and the government and the grants had to be disposed of quickly.

Milton seemed like a player, Brown said. "He's got like three cellphones always ringing. He's got revivals going, He said he was blessed by God and wanted to help others."

Brown said Milton was to deliver a huge grant to a local church in exchange for $15,000. Brown was feeling uneasy about the truck-school grant. But he parted with $3,000.

A hard man to catch 

In the end, Milton collected more than $300,000 in such "administrative fees" from churches.

His attorney, Kieffer, says the $20 million in attempted fraud stated by prosecutors is an inflated figure. He said many of the prospective mortgage loans were duplicate offers for the same deal. He said Milton was shopping for potential deals because Atlanta is "the foreclosure capital of the U.S."

Even though he was on the run in late 2004, Milton could be found on Sundays in front of the small congregation of the start-up Call to Conquer Church in DeKalb County. He was renting a church building and trying to get a $2.7 million mortgage loan, prosecutors said.

Mavis Tate, who met him while he was an associate at another church, followed him to Call to Conquer. "That man knows the Bible, " she said. "He was a magnificent speaker and teacher. If he was straight, he could build a ministry."

In 2005, bail bondsmen from Free At Last Bonding found Milton in an Atlanta park. But he escaped, prosecutor McKenzie said, trying to run over a bondsman with his vehicle.

Last June, federal agents tracked Milton to South Georgia, where he led them on a chase going more than 100 mph through downtown Pelham. He was cornered by federal agents. He tried to run one over and was shot three times, speeding away.

Prosecutors say he later tried to run over two more law officers and almost hit a woman at a farm. His vehicle finally slammed into a patch of trees in a cotton field and he was captured.

Back behind bars earlier this month, Milton was tape-recorded on a jailhouse phone, McKenzie said. He was trying to line up a mortgage loan.