Banker ordered to pay millions

NAPLES — U.S. District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell ordered former Orion Bank CEO Jerry Williams to pay more than $31 million in restitution to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to court records posted Wednesday.

In June, Honeywell sentenced Williams, 52, to six years in federal prison for fraudulently trying to raise capital by falsifying bank records as Naples-based Orion was failing under the weight of bad loans.

In February, Williams admitted that he conspired to lend $22 million to depositors whom he knew would then buy shares of Orion's stock. Bank regulations prohibit banks from financing the purchase of their own stock.

Before regulators shut it down in late 2009, Orion was the second-largest bank headquartered on the Gulf Coast. The real estate collapse exposed Orion's concentration of construction and development loans and state regulators closed it, selling most of the assets and deposits to Louisiana-based IberiaBank.