<p>Mayor Ben Stewart killed himself Thursday, just hours before a county grand jury was to hear fraud charges against him that could have led to a sentence of more than 1,000 years in prison.</p><p>Stewart, 54, who has been the subject of an ongoing investment-fraud investigation, called Union Point Police Chief Richard Campbell at 4:30 a.m. "and told him to come get him. He was going to take his life," Greene County Sheriff Chris Houston said.</p><p>By the time Campbell and other officers arrived at the house, Stewart had shot himself in the head with a .38-caliber handgun, Houston said.</p><p>The mayor of 24 years was still alive when officers arrived, but he died hours later at Athens Regional Medical Center.</p><p>Greene County grand jury had been scheduled to hear a 197-count indictment against Stewart on Thursday that included two racketeering charges, Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Fred Bright said.</p><p>The indictment accused Stewart of defrauding around $38 million from 800 to 900 people from Greene County and the surrounding area, Bright said.</p><p>"A lot of these people lost literally their life savings," Bright said.</p><p>The district attorney said Stewart was involved in a Ponzi scheme, in which money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors until the whole scheme collapses. The scheme was so wide-reaching that federal and state authorities also were investigating the mayor.</p><p>The Georgia attorney general appointed attorney Andrew Ekonomou to aid in the investigation. Ekonomou said Thursday that the mayor used money invested with one of his companies, Stewart Finance, for personal and professional ventures, including vacation homes, 12 country-club memberships, monetary gifts to his two sons and a $1 million gambling debt tallied over four years in Las Vegas.</p><p>He also invested money in his other businesses, which included a mortgage business, insurance agency, payday loan company and quail-hunting lodge.</p><p>"He lived very lavishly," Ekonomou said, adding that Stewart was told by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission in 1999 to stop selling debentures, a form of borrowing in which a certain rate of interest is promised over a fixed time period.</p><p>Instead, said the attorney, Stewart changed the name of his business on several occasions and continued selling debentures.</p><p>The mayor declared personal bankruptcy in March, just 11 months after the secretary of state began investigating his businesses and six months after the state froze his assets.</p><p>There has been plenty of gossip in this town of 1,700 about Stewart's business dealings, and angry residents have been waiting for the indictments to be handed down.</p><p>"I just think he got in over his head," said Lanier Rhodes, who owns a sports shop in downtown Union Point. "It's all people talked about."</p><p>Things just "snowballed" for Stewart, said Jim Carpenter, a friend of Stewart's who owns a pharmacy in Union Point.</p><p>The individual investments ranged from $5,000 to $750,000, Bright said, and investors also ranged from the financially secure to retirees and people investing their last thousands with Stewart.</p><p>Ekonomou said there is little chance of the investors getting their money back.</p><p>Bright said the criminal case is now over because Stewart was the only person listed on the indictment, but an investigation continues into others who may have been involved.</p><p>Stewart could have faced one to 20 years for each of the racketeering charges and up to five years for each of the other 195 charges.</p><p>Stewart ran for state Senate twice during his tenure as mayor. His father and grandfather also served as mayors of the town 75 miles east of Atlanta.</p><p>___</p><p>Associated Press Writer Eliott C. McLaughlin in Atlanta contributed to this report.</p>
