Controlling interest in the Peoples Bank of Marion will be sold in the coming weeks, ending the two-generations of ownership and daily operations by the Guess family.
Bank President Gordon B. Guess has announced that negotiations to sell majority interest in the bank to a group of investors is complete. The deal will be consummated later this summer, pending regulatory approval by the State of Kentucky, FDIC and the Federal Reserve.
New investors buying controlling interest are all from outside of Crittenden County. Those investors have not been named yet.
Guess and some other large investors are selling their stake in Peoples-Marion Bancorp Inc., the holding company which owns the bank. Employees and other shareholders will retain their ownership interest in the bank, Guess said.
Current employees will remain in place, but the directors will change. The name of the bank will be retained, and it will continue to be an independent bank.
The Guess family has controlled the bank, one of two long-standing locally-owned financial institutions, for the past 58 years. The late Neil Guess, father of current president and board chairman Gordon Guess, started the bank in the 1940s with a few other investors.
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Resolution sought in Davidson case
Special Prosecutor Gale Cook of Calloway County told Circuit Judge Rene Williams last Thursday that a resolution in the Steve Davidson criminal case could be reached by Aug. 10.
Davidson, 63, of Marion was indicted last spring on charges that he embezzled $236,313.58 from the Crittenden County Economic Development Corporation (CCEDC) while he was president and CEO from 1999 to 2005. He was also indicted on one count of identity theft for allegedly using a former CCEDC employee’s personal information to qualify for a credit card.
Davidson appeared in Crittenden Circuit Court last Thursday morning for a pretrial hearing. The prosecutor and Davidson’s attorney, Andrew Coiner of Paducah, asked the judge to continue the case until next month for another pretrial hearing.
Davidson has pleaded not guilty to the charges, but Cook says a deal may be struck which could prevent the case from going to trial. She plans to meet soon with Davidson’s attorney and discuss details of the agreement.
The suspect remains free on $50,000 cash bond.
Cook indicated that a plea agreement could be reached and ready to enter at Davidson's next scheduled court appearance in August. So far, no trial date has been set.
Cook, who lost the May primary election and will be giving up her prosecutorial role in December, said she plans to have the case finished before she leaves office.
“My intention is to have a resolution, either a plea or a jury trial, before the end of the year,” she told The Press after Thursday’s court appearance.
The charges against Davidson were filed after a state police investigation found several years of allegedly altered credit card statements. The alterations, state police said, were done to cover up cash advances and other misuses of CCEDC credit cards.