A Montgomery County circuit judge has appointed a temporary special fiduciary to oversee the charitable trust of a former Alabama secretary of state that has been the subject of a lawsuit.

On Thursday, Circuit Judge Greg Griffin appointed James C. White Sr. of Birmingham to oversee the Mabel Amos Memorial Fund, pending a decision on whether to remove Regions Financial as the trust’s manager.

White has 90 days to make decisions, look over the trust’s records, and conduct an audit of all the money paid out by the trust, as well as report back to the court. He will also determine whether trustee fees collected by Regions constitute a “serious breach of trust,” according to the 10-page order.

In June, the Alabama Supreme Court ended an investigation into alleged wrongdoing regarding the trust. The court ruled 8-0, with Justice Greg Cook recusing himself, that the circuit court’s November 2023 order to refer the case to a special master was vacated, as it “exceeded (the lower court’s) discretion.”

The decision dealt with a suit filed in 2022 in Montgomery County Circuit Court alleging that, while Regions administered a charitable trust named for former Alabama Secretary of State Mabel Amos, it charged exorbitant fees and steered scholarship money to children of the trust board members.

The suit was filed by members of Amos’ family. Amos died in 1999.

The lawsuit contends that the board trustees benefited personally “using the funds in the Trust to educate their children at out-of-state expensive colleges and were not in financial need, while members of Amos’ immediate family were in financial need.”

According to the lawsuit, Regions began charging “outrageous” fees when oil was discovered on Amos’ property, in contrast to “reasonable” fees when there were only natural gas wells there.

For example, the suit claims that Regions was paid about $7,000 for spending five hours a week administering the trust in 2010.

Within a year, that same five hours a week cost $92,736.

From 2002 to 2018, the suit claims, the trust paid more than $1 million in administration fees to Regions.

At the same time, the wells have produced between $70 million to $80 million worth of oil and gas, or roughly 100 barrels of oil a day, along with millions of cubic feet in natural gas.

The suit sought to remove the fund’s trustee and board members and restore “misappropriated” assets to the fund.

“Due to the pending nature of this matter, we have no further comment beyond our public court filings,” Jeremy King, Regions spokesman, said. “We remain focused on addressing and resolving this matter through the proper venue, which is the legal system.”

In his order, Griffin said the trust’s tax filings show the children of Alabama Ethics Commission Executive Director Tom Albritton reportedly received $135,000 from the trust while he was a trustee, which Griffin said “clearly violated the Trust’s prohibition on private inurement and self-dealing on the part of the trustees.”

In addition, Griffin said children and grandchildren of “staff members of the trustees’ law firm,” “the child of a former partner and judge before whom the trustees practiced law,” and “the children of wealthy clients of their law firm” received scholarship money.

However, the amount of money received, Griffin stated, is “not currently ascertainable” as they have not been disclosed in tax filings.

In March 2023, Attorney General Steve Marshall accused Albritton of improperly benefiting from the trust in a motion to the lawsuit.