A Georgia man accused of running an alleged Ponzi scheme made contributions to at least three elected Alabama Republican officials over the last four years, either directly or through his businesses, according to campaign finance records.
The recipients of the funds from Edwin Brant Frost IV, an investor whose family is influential in the Georgia Republican Party, include then-Rep. Andrew Sorrell, R-Muscle Shoals, now the Alabama state auditor; Rep. Ben Harrison, R-Elkmont, and Alabama State Board of Education member Allen Long.
Frost’s interest in Alabama politics is not clear. Joshua Mayes, a lawyer representing Frost, wrote in an email Wednesday that “Mr. Frost has no comment on this matter” when asked about his political interests in Alabama or connections to elected officials.
A lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on July 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia alleged Frost and his associated investment firms raised at least $140 million between 2014 and 2025 through fraudulent means.
Frost is accused of misappropriating over $5 million of investor funds for himself and his family members. The SEC said Frost used $570,000 from the allegedly misappropriated money for political donations. According to campaign finance records, Frost, members of his family or his businesses made at least $132,000 in contributions to Alabama politicians and political action committees.
Sorrell and his PAC, Alabama Christian Citizens, collectively received at least $71,000 in contributions from the Frost family and their investment entities. According to campaign finance records, Alabama Christian Citizens made a loan of $29,000 to First Liberty Building & Loan, one of the Frost’s companies, in April 2024. According to Alabama election law, a PAC may issue a loan for “the purpose of influencing the result of an election.”
Reached by phone on Tuesday, Sorrell, who is running for Alabama secretary of state, asked that questions be sent in writing. Hours later, Sorrell said in a statement that he was one of over 300 people who fell victim to the scheme and that the political action committee he operates had invested money.
“I am among the hundreds of people who lost money when the federal government recently discovered that First Liberty Building & Loan in Newnan, Georgia, was defrauding its investors through a Madoff-like Ponzi scheme,” Sorrell said in a statement.
Sorrell said in his statement that he will “return the contributions to a court-appointed receiver as soon as the process is available.”
“It’s important that all recovered money goes back to the investors, so everyone can be made whole rather than to the individual who defrauded us,” he said in the statement.
PONZI SCHEME ALLEGATIONS
According to the SEC lawsuit, Frost and First Liberty Building & Loan told investors that their funds would be used to provide “bridge loans” to small businesses seeking long-term federal Small Business Administration loans. These investments offered annual returns ranging from 8% to 18%. The SEC alleges that Frost and his entities did not use investor funds as represented, and most of the bridge loans ultimately defaulted.
The SEC alleges First Liberty operated as a Ponzi scheme as early as 2021, at about the time when donations to Alabama politicians began, using funds from new investors to make interest payments to existing investors.
The complaint states that “most, if not all, of the funds raised through the publicly advertised offering were either misappropriated or used to make Ponzi-style payments to existing investors.”
Sorrell added in the statement that Frost’s company had “marketed itself through conservative channels as a ‘patriotic’ and ‘Christian’ investment opportunity.”
“It’s an unfortunate situation that happens frequently across the U.S., and all of us who trusted the marketing and lost our investments have learned a tough lesson,” the statement said.
Sorrell’s campaigns began receiving contributions in 2021, with individual contributions from Frost and his son, Brant Frost V. According to campaign finance records, both Frosts made personal donations to Sorrell’s auditor campaign totaling $7,500 in July 2021. Brant Frost V made an additional contribution of $2,500 to Sorrell’s campaign the following March.
First Liberty Capital gave Sorrell’s auditor campaign $10,000 on Dec. 13, 2021, according to campaign finance reports. In May 2022, Sorrell received $10,000 from First National Investments, another one of the Frost’s investment entities. First National contributed $12,500 to Sorrell’s PAC in July 2024. In May of this year, First National gave Sorrell’s secretary of state campaign $25,000, according to campaign finance reports. SEC Senior Accountant Tiffany Kunkle, in testimony, said that Frost “controls all the funds flowing in and out” of both entities, as well as First Liberty Building & Loan.
Sorrell’s PAC received various interest payments totaling $3,876.37 from First Liberty Building & Loan between June 2024 and May 2025, with individual monthly payments of up to $290 stemming from the $29,000 loan the PAC made to First Liberty in 2024.
INFLUENTIAL REPUBLICAN
The Frost family has deep ties to the Georgia Republican Party. Brant Frost IV served as Georgia state director for Pat Robertson, a conservative televangelist-turned-Republican presidential candidate, in 1988, according to Georgia Recorder. Brant Frost V, who worked as a principal at First Liberty, is a former vice-chair of the Georgia GOP. And Frost IV’s daughter, Katie Frost, chairs a regional committee for the state party. Until last month, both siblings held leadership roles in the Georgia Republican Assembly, a far-right wing of the Georgia Republican Party.
In a statement Monday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger pushed for “any political entity that accepted contributions from First Liberty, the Frost Family or any of their affiliates to return those contributions to the court-appointed receiver so that victims of the alleged fraud may be made whole.”
“Ill-gotten gains do not belong in the State Capitol,” Raffensperger said.
Rep. Ben Harrison, R-Elkmont, received over $21,000 in donations from Brant in 2022.
Harrison said in a phone interview Tuesday that he was unaware of the alleged scheme and that he will “investigate it … (and) make a determination” on whether he will return the funds, as Raffensberger outlined.
“They make political donations to conservative candidates, but I know nothing of this, this lawsuit or any claims,” Harrison said.
A few hours after the phone interview, he said in a statement that he is “looking into the legal avenues to return the funds.”
“I am committed to making sure I do everything in my power to support the victims of this financial tragedy,” he said.
Allen Long, a conservative member of the Alabama State Board of Education, also received $40,000 from First National Investments in December 2023, an unusually high donation in board of education campaigns. By contrast, Long’s Republican opponents in the primary for the seat, Douglas Bacchus and Oscar Mann, raised a combined total of $43,194 for the campaign. Long also received $500 from Edwin Frost in December 2023.
A message seeking comment from Long was left on Wednesday.
Other recipients of Frost’s political contributions include Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who last received a donation from Frost in 2019, according to campaign finance records in that state; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado.
Former Alabama Reflector reporter Jemma Stephenson contributed to this report.
Read more at AlabamaReflector.com.
