A little more than a year ago, Gary Jones and Fatemeh Angela Harkness were living a race-car lover’s dream. Jones, a 36-year-old Austin banker, and Harkness, a 27-year-old former kindergarten teacher from Round Rock, had assembled a racing team — Angela’s Motorsports — that was entering not one but two cars in NASCAR events. A 17-count indictment was handed up by a federal grand jury in Austin, TX. Made public Wednesday, the indictment charges that Jones embezzled almost $1 million while working as a business banker at a Wells Fargo branch in North Austin from November 2000 to March 2003. He is accused of using fake documents and forged signatures to issue a series of loans in other people’s names. Those people didn’t get the money, which Jones instead took for himself and used to fund Angela’s Motorsports, according to the indictment. Harkness has already pleaded guilty in the scheme and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, court records indicate. She is free on bail. The racing team featured veteran driver Mike McLaughlin. It entered cars in the Busch Grand National Series, a sort of Triple-A NASCAR circuit, starting in late 2002. That was two years after Jones worked on the first of the 12 fraudulent loans he is accused of making. It was for $38,000 and was issued in the name of Jones’ sister, according to indictment. The loans grew in value as time went on and were issued in various names, including those of Jones’ relatives. The documents to support the loans and signatures were forged, according to the indictment. The largest loan was for $250,000 and was approved November 20, 2002, according to indictment. That was one month after Harkness announced the formation of the team at a news conference at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Jones is been free on bond since his arrest in October. Neither he nor a lawyer representing him could be reached for comment. A $70,000 loan to Angela’s Motorsports was guaranteed by Harkness, according to the indictment. Federal prosecutors charged her last month with conspiracy to commit fraud; she simultaneously agreed to a plea bargain. The agreement is contingent upon Harkness’ cooperation. She is scheduled to be sentenced later this month and faces up to five years in federal prison. Court records say she conspired to use a Social Security number that wasn’t hers to take out the $70,000 loan, as well as a $50,000 loan for a 2001 Mercedes and a $205,000 loan for a home on Marsala Springs Drive in Round Rock. The court document also said she used the fake Social Security number to take out the $250,000 loan in her mother’s name. Robert Yates Racing received $150,000 and McLaughlin, the team’s driver, got $100,000, prosecutors say.
Landing McLaughlin as their driver was considered a big coup in racing circles. He was available only because his former team owner, current Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, was dropping him so that Gibbs’ son, Coy, could make his debut as a Busch series driver in 2003. But money is the biggest hurdle to running a successful NASCAR team. At the season finale for 2002, the Ford 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 16, Angela’s Motorsports raced two cars and was looking forward to the 2003 season. But by January 2003, checks to the crew began to bounce, equipment was repossessed, and the dream was over. McLaughlin, in an interview last year, lamented the team’s demise. “It all seemed too good to be true,” he said.(Austin American-Statesman)(2-5-2004)
