Attorney General’s Office Asks Court to Remove Student From Mabel Amos Memorial Fund Lawsuit

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office has asked a court to remove a high school student from a lawsuit over the Mabel Amos Memorial Fund, months after the office told the court it took no position on her participation.

About the trust

The fund is a charitable trust created by Mabel Amos, a former Alabama secretary of state, to provide scholarships to needy college students. Amos was in her 90s when the trust was set up in her will, which was prepared by the Albritton Law Firm in Andalusia. After her death, Tom Albritton and Rick Clifton, two attorneys with the firm, became members of the trust’s board, along with Regions Bank officer John Bell.

The trust, valued at about $500,000, awarded a few small scholarships each year. In 2011, a Canadian wildcatter struck oil on land the trust owned in Conecuh County, and by 2013 millions of dollars began flowing into the fund.

The trust then began awarding more and larger scholarships. Albritton’s two children received a total of $120,000 in tuition to attend the University of Texas over about six years, according to filings in the case. Self-dealing by the board members of a tax-exempt trust is prohibited by law and by the documents that created the fund. Shortly after his children began receiving the scholarship money, Albritton was appointed executive director of the Alabama Ethics Commission.

The lawsuit

About a year ago, two of Amos’ relatives filed a civil lawsuit against Regions, which has collected more than $1 million in fees for managing the trust. Marshall has sought to join the case, arguing that his office is the one with standing to oversee such entities. In his motion to join the case, Marshall accused Albritton of fraud and self-dealing. Those accusations have not been proven.

A high school student has petitioned to join the case as a representative of all students who should be eligible for scholarships from the fund. Her attorney, Byron Mathews Jr., has filed motions that would add Albritton and the rest of the board as defendants. The motions would also require Regions to disclose the names of all scholarship recipients since 2014, when it stopped including their names in required IRS Form 990 tax filings.

In one motion, Mathews argued that the student’s participation is important because Marshall has conflicts of interest. He stated that the attorney general’s office has paid millions of dollars to the same attorneys representing Regions in the case, and that Marshall received campaign contributions from both Regions and those lawyers.

Attorney general’s change in position

This week, Marshall’s office asked the court to remove the student from the case. A few months earlier, the attorney representing the attorney general’s office had told the court the office had no opinion on the matter and that it should be left to the court.

Court records show that Judge Johnny Hardwick, who is overseeing the case, has ruled on almost none of the roughly 70 motions filed so far. In the same period, he has ruled on motions in, or completed, other civil cases assigned to him around the same time.

Regions has said it believes the attorney general’s office is the only interested party with standing in the case. There has been no indication that Marshall’s office is conducting a criminal investigation of Albritton or the board.

Earlier dispute over exculpatory evidence

Albritton and Marshall clashed last year over whether the Ethics Commission was required to provide exculpatory evidence to people accused of violations and to the attorney general’s office, which conducts investigations. Albritton said the commission was not required to do so. Marshall said it was and filed suit. The Legislature settled the dispute this session by passing a law requiring the Ethics Commission to provide such evidence, known as Brady material.