A former Gov. Phil Bredesen-appointed member of the state Department of Commerce and Insurance’s Collection Service Board now faces federal charges, including 16 felony counts, related to three different investment schemes.
More from The City Paper:
In March 2011, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation arrested Edward Shannon Polen, on three felony charges of theft, but the full scale of his alleged crimes came into focus on Monday when prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville charged Polen with scamming 74 individual investors and banks out of $8,796,000.
Bredesen appointed Polen to the Collection Service Board, which oversees debt collection agencies in the state, in July 2008. He served a full term, before resigning on April 5, 2011, according to board minutes.
Polen, also a former Robertson County commissioner, is charged with five counts of bank fraud, three counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering for operating three investment schemes.
“Despite his assurances to investor-victims of significant returns on their investment … Edward Shannon Polen never intended to invest their funds as promised,” the charges state.