PDF: Brown vs. Rayburn
Federal prosecutors have caught up to a woman who a Hamilton County jury already said embezzled $1.65 million over the course of her career as the bookkeeper of a small local construction business.
Still saddled with a $2.95 million judgment in compensatory and punitive damages in Hamilton County Circuit Court, Jewayn Rayburn now is charged in U.S. District Court with 16 criminal counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, forged securities and tax evasion.
The charges relate to her former employment at the now-defunct Browns Construction Co. in Ringgold, Ga.
Ms. Rayburn, 64, pleaded not guilty Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Bill Carter, after which she hastily left the courtroom.
During her state civil trial last summer, Ms. Rayburn remained defiant during the portion of the proceeding in which she unsuccessfully tried to convince the jury not to award punitive damages.
"I didn't do it," Ms. Rayburn told the jury, explaining how she had $100,000 in credit card debt and an elderly mother to take care of.
But the company's owners, brothers Richard and Bernard Brown, saw it differently.
Evidence showed Ms. Rayburn learned to perfect Richard Brown's signature, routinely writing checks to herself as the company's bookkeeper. She doctored accounting records to make it look as though the checks were going to vendors, testimony revealed.
"There were years when she technically made more money than (the Browns)," said Kendra Thrash, the legal assistant with attorney Phillip Lawrence, who represented the Browns in the case.
In defending herself, Ms. Rayburn said she wrote about 400 checks to herself with the Browns' permission as "repayment" for loans she made to the company. All the extra money she made came from casino winnings, Ms. Rayburn testified.
She since has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, but a federal bankruptcy judge has ruled she forever will be responsible for the civil court judgment.
After successfully winning their case against Ms. Rayburn, who had worked for the Browns since 1975 and was considered "one of the family," the Brown brothers told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that they had turned over evidence of the alleged swindle to the FBI.
The FBI at the time would not comment on whether an investigation was under way.
The federal indictment against Ms. Rayburn is the result of that investigation. She is not charged with stealing from the Browns, since such a crime falls under state jurisdiction, but rather with committing bank fraud and the other various federal crimes by depositing the forged checks with Cornerstone Community Bank in Chattanooga.
Ms. Rayburn also never paid taxes on the extra income, the indictment states. On April 15, 2007, for example, records show Ms. Rayburn received an extra $25,689 in fraudulent income but reported only $3,474 to the Internal Revenue Service.
Richard Brown declined to comment Thursday on the criminal case. After the trial last summer, the brothers admitted they trusted Ms. Rayburn "completely" and had failed to pay attention to the accounting practices.