A discovery petition that Alabama One used to challenge twoAlabama Credit Union Administration examiners in 2011 could be aforgery, according to Danny Ray Butler's fiancée, Paige Howard.

Judge John England of the Alabama Circuit Court of Tuscaloosacontinued a hearing on the currentfight between Alabama One and the ACUA over the ACUA'sApril 2 ceaseand desist order at 1 p.m. CDT Monday.

Butler pleaded guilty in federal court to six counts of a51-count indictment for check kiting between Alabama One and theWest Alabama Bank and Trust in February 2014, and has been in thefederal prison system since September 2014. However, Howard hassaid prison officials have told Butler to expect release from thefederal prison in Talladega, Ala. in December 2015.

Howard, who has power of attorney for Butler, sent the documentto noted forensic handwriting firm Drexler Document Laboratory inBirmingham, Ala. for analysis. Howard said Drexler told her she canexpect an analysis later this week.

“After all this time, I have come to know Danny's signature,”Howard said. “That's not Danny's signature.”

The document appeared to be a petition from Danny Ray Butler toallow his lawyers to depose Jordan Sullivan, then president of thethen $48.7 million Secure First Credit Union in Birmingham, LindseySumrall, another Secure first employee, and Robert Kuhn, currentlythe president/CEO of Capstone Bank, in connection to a threatened2011 lawsuit against ACUA examiners James Arndt and RobertRussell.

Reached by phone at the ACUA, Arndt, now listed as a BankExamination Coordinator on the agency's website, declined tocomment on the story and referred CU Times to the agency'sadministrative offices.

Tuscaloosa attorney James D. Turner, who has also been along-time attorney for Alabama One, prepared the Aug. 23, 2011petition and other motions. Turner did not respond to an emailseeking comment on the document.

According to the petition and related documents, Butler soughtto depose the executives as part of a pre-complaint investigationinto whether or not the two ACUA examiners, Arndt and Russell, hadrevealed confidential information about his business dealings andoutstanding loans to them. The petition said Butler expected tofile a complaint against the agency for defamation as well as,eventually, potential invasion of privacy and civil conspiracy.

According to documents filed in the dispute, in 2009 both theACUA and NCUA ordered Alabama One to cease making business loans,divest itself of loans to Butler and execute replacement loans withspecific terms and a schedule of payments with a date oftermination. As a result, the ACUA began looking at Butler and hisbusinesses very closely, according to the documents.

“Mr. Butler's financial situation is a matter of great interestto state regulators and one that will continue to be of interest inthe foreseeable future,” the ACUA wrote in a motion objecting toButler's petition on Aug. 31, 2011. “The ACUA and NCUA continue toclosely monitor lending to Mr. Butler or his corporations andothers through whom he may be doing business.”

The agency's filing also revealed that Butler had 16 loans fromat least two state-chartered credit unions and that when the ACUAand NCUA ordered the credit union `stop making loans to Butler in2009, they amounted to $26 million or 48% of Alabama One's businessloan portfolio. The document also revealed that most of them wereinterest-only loans with no specific payment period.

The same firm that filed the petition, Turner and Turner, alsofiled a motion to strike the agency's motion on Sep. 9, 2011 andthe examiners countered that the information provided in theirmotion was in file with the ACUA and available to the public onSep. 27.

The court dismissed the case later, according to one of thelawyers in the matter who declined to speak for the record.

Howard said Alabama One lawyers told Butler they planned to suethe ACUA and make the suit about Butler rather than about thecredit union. She said Butler told her that when she visitedhim in the Talladega prison facility. She also said lawyers toldButler that Turner would write the ACUA to tell them how upset theinvestigation had made Butler, but that no one informed him aboutTurner's legal motion.

Mr. Sumrall, a branch manager for Alabama One from 2000-2005,did not reply to an email seeking clarification of his positionwith Secure First in 2011.