Greg Aziz
TUSCUMBIA – The long dramatic saga of a powerful investment guru in Montgomery, an ambitious billionaire from Canada and a mile-long factory in Cherokee seems to have run its course, the dénouement, if you will, is complete.
Friday of last week, without much fanfare, Canadian industrialist, 66 year old Gregory Aziz left Alabama in a jet airplane. Aziz, who spent the past year in an ankle bracelet on felony accusations of fraud, was the man who was to build a huge railcar manufacturing facility near Barton and man it with over 2,.000 employees. He never got that far.
The plant is in operation today, thanks to Navistar and its partner, FreightCar America. But it took a few more years than planned as Retirement Systems of Alabama CEO, David Bronner worked overtime to find a suitable tenant for the $800 million-plus assembly plant.
David Bronner
To say that David Bronner was gunning for Greg Aziz, is putting it mildly. On July 17, 2013, The Quad-Cities Daily caught up with Bronner at the celebration of the official opening of the Navistar and FreightCar America operations. We caught up with him and asked if he was through with Aziz, or if there were any plans for the future.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OqM1vUimcY]Sure enough, just a few months later (1 year ago yesterday), Aziz was arrested in Chicago by The U.S. Marshall Service and returned to Colbert County to face charges.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfAuZ3X8fT4]The day following Aziz’s return to Tuscumbia, he had his first appearance in Circuit Court.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRF3HO9RlRU]Since that time, Aziz has, under Court Order, remained in Alabama.
As of Friday, the episode is finished. Aziz paid his $21-million, and all criminal charges were dropped. David Bronner reportedly told one media outlet that he is satisfied with the ending.
