Royal Palm Investor Bilked Bank, Bought Island

Guy Mitchell is charged with conspiracy along with executives at the most ironically-named bank ever.

Perhaps the visitor's bureau should look into a tour of financial scammers' homes, because at this rate we'll be as famous for fraudsters as we are for Art Deco treasures and incredible weather. Or maybe we'll make trading cards and start a collectables craze.

Reclusive Royal Palm Hotel investor and Coral Gables resident Guy Mitchell, 50, is the latest to follow in the fraudulent footsteps of Scott Rothstein, Sean Healy, Nevin Shapiro, and others -- except Mitchell owns the dubious honor of having taken down an entire Atlanta bank while he padded his own pockets, as opposed to just other individuals.

Federal prosecutors allege that Mitchell funneled about $20 million of $80 million dollars in construction and development loans he was awarded by Integrity Bank into a personal checking account to fund a lavish lifestyle, including the purchase of a private island in the Bahamas.

They also allege that two execs at Integrity, a faith-based bank that handed out Bibles and held employee prayer meetings, hastened its end by continuing to award undeserved loan money to Mitchell in exchange for bribes totalling $230,000. Then, when it was clear the bank would collapse, they dumped their stock.

Most ironic bank name ever? 

"A number of banks have suffered from the plummeting real estate market, but this bank was robbed from the inside," said US Attorney Sally Yates. Rather than collect outstanding interest payments, the government alleges, Integrity purposefully continued to award "Monopoly money" to Mitchell as his debt ballooned.

Integrity's Douglas Ballard and Joseph Todd Foster are charged with conspiracy, insider trading, and bank fraud; Mitchell is charged with bank fraud, bribery, and conspiracy, and faces a possible 65-year sentence.

While the fraud is not tied to Mitchell's investment in South Beach's Royal Palm Hotel, it is the project for which he was most well-known. He seemingly came from nowhere, at least where Miami business associates were concerned, when he emerged as the primary investor behind the Royal Palm's condo-resort conversion in 2005.

That property, once intented to be a black-owned resort in atonement for seemingly racist activities on the part of Miami-Dade County that caused a devastating tourist boycott in 1989, is slated for auction later this month after a spiraling fight over -- you guessed it! -- unpaid debts to its developer.

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