A possible buyer for the Carraway Medical Center has a questionable history.

Photo by BhamWiki.

The Rev. Hosea Agee, Jr. went before the Birmingham City Council this morning and announced that he was buying the Carraway Medical Center and turning it into a center for homeless veterans. However, according to the Birmingham News, current building owner Brenda Spahn has not agreed to sell the building to Agee.

But Agee also has a financially questionable past, including a conviction on securities charges that one official compared to an “affinity scam.” In 2001, he pleaded guilty to selling an unregistered security after being indicted for several securities-related charges in 2000 relating to the sale of church bonds.

“This crime fits the profile of an affinity scam which targets people in an organization by a member of that organization, which is oftentimes a church,” Joseph P. Borg, the then-director of the Alabama Securities Commission, said after Agee was sentenced.

The late Judge Mac Parsons sentenced Agee to a four-year suspended sentence and a five-year probation, and ordered him “to pay restitution of $21,000 to 3 victims at $475.00 per month.”

Agee was also a supporter of former Mayor Larry Langford during his corruption trial, and referred to Langford as a “friend.”