Price is Wrong

In an FBI affidavit filed in that matter, I found details of what the FBI claims is the inside skinny on the Grady Niblo land, Wayne White, Faulkner, the dominoes and the blah-bah-blah. The FBI says White borrowed money in 1998 from a Forney bank to buy a 50 percent interest in land belonging to his friend Domino Danny. Price borrowed money from the same bank and bought the other 50 percent interest in the land.

They appear to have paid a total of $50,000 for the land in 1998, which sold again in 2003 when it was apparently worth $250,000 and again this year at a value of $750,000. Those prices, however, are only the paper values. There is repeated suggestion in the FBI affidavit that "other monies" passed under the table in some of these transactions.

Jared Boggess

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More About

• John Wiley Price
• Wayne White
• Danny Faulkner
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Grady Niblo

But, wait. Back to 1998. So the land goes from Danny Faulkner to White and Price, right? Wrong. Did I not tell you about John Wayne? Yeah, he's in here too.

The land is placed in only White's name. Remember that the commissioner is still in bankruptcy court trying to shrug off 372 grand that he owes people. He has listed his assets for the bankruptcy court. He's not supposed to be out buying land.

So he trusts White to hold it for him? Yeah, right. No. What he does is have White sign a contract with Fain, Price's assistant, assigning the property to a corporate entity in which White and Fain each own a 50 percent interest. As part of that deal, White signs a deed to Fain giving her a 50 percent interest in the land.

That deed is never recorded with the county, meaning it will never be findable by anybody else. It sits in a drawer. Gee, I wonder whose?

White and Fain call their new entity "John Wayne Properties." Get it? John Price? Wayne White? So now what's the deal? Is it that White and Price really own the property, but Price doesn't put his name on it because he's concealing assets, so he puts Fain's name on it to keep White in line?

Maybe. Maybe not, because the FBI affidavit also says Price himself paid the taxes and made all the loan payments, both for himself and for White. So does White own anything? He must, because in 2003 Price pays White serious money for White's half interest in the Grady Niblo land. Well, he pays somebody.

Hey, watch: This is the day I wrote about a year ago, when Price buys Grady Niblo from two people, one of whom doesn't own it. All mysteries shall be revealed.

Price gets a deed from White giving Price 100 percent ownership of Grady Niblo. But then he also gets a quit-claim deed from Fain surrendering her 50 percent interest.

It actually gets squirrelier. In addition to paying White $125,000 for the land, he pays White another $25,303.71 as a "partnership adjustment." The FBI says in the affidavit that they think that second amount is to pay off the portion of the previous mortgage that was in Fain's name.

Price borrowed all of this money from his friendly Forney bank, now called City Bank of Forney. And I have to say, they must be really friendly. I'm trying to imagine going to any bank and saying, "I want a $125,000 of your money to pay for some land. That will be collateralized by the land. And then I want to give the guy another 25 G's of your money for a side deal which will not be collateralized by the land." They say sure.

Oh, well. Must be a Forney thing.

Fast forward to February of this year. Price sells Grady Niblo for $750,000 to a guy named W.O. Henry for development as HUD housing of some kind. That deal gets bollixed up when the title company learns there are "other monies that were negotiated outside of the closing." The old "other monies" thing.

Next thing, the FBI nabs some $200,000 that has already exchanged hands in that deal, claiming it is all proceeds of criminal activity. And that more or less brings us to today.

So why bring it all up again? First, to complete the record a little better. Second, because the Grady Niblo deal is only a window, a drop in the bucket, a fraction of the overall case the FBI has been building against Price.

Like I say, the feds are stingy. They probably figure somebody still owes them 16 years.