[10] The loss of the bank to the out-of-town development would otherwise have been a major blow, considering that in 1973, it paid half of Melvin's tax value; still, its departure deprived the immediate core of Melvin—which had been declining since the 1930s due to highway reroutings, railroad and school closures, and water supply issues—of one of its most profitable business ventures.
[19] An affidavit unsealed on December 9 revealed that while Maree was the principal stockholder in Ranchlander, the real party in interest was another East Texan.
[21] He owned an estate on Lake Palestine near Tyler, where he lived with Maree, as well as two airplanes, multiple limousines including a Rolls-Royce, four boats, and one yacht.
[24] Attention was drawn to other dealings between Ranchlander and broadcast stations after 35-year-old Peter W. Dean, who had organized a company known as Central Texas Factors with Shaid, Moon, and Ludka, was found dead on his father's farm in Comal County on December 21.
[26] Pipkin was a shareholder of Sunrise Broadcasting, which held a construction permit to build a new TV station on channel 14 at Tyler; Ludka's wife was the president.
[27] Moon testified that she had known of Shaid's efforts; she signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to make a false statement in exchange for testimony.
[13] The 12-person jury deliberated less than four hours before finding Shaid guilty of all 19 counts of bank and mail fraud;[28] in June, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison[29] at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute.
[27] In 1984, U.S. district attorney Bob Wortham testified to Congress on the Shaid case, a file that a feature article in American Banker magazine called "a dime-store novel".
[24] The Ranchlander failure was included in a congressional report published later that year, Federal Response to Criminal Misconduct and Insider Abuse in the Nation's Financial Institutions.
[31] The report laid blame at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for insufficient investigation into the credentials of Maree and others in connection with the 1981 change of control.