'Runaway bride' says he ran off with money

Wilbanks got that name after she disappeared before a lavishly planned wedding last year and concocted a phony kidnapping story. The truth was that she got cold feet and fled to New Mexico.

In the suit filed in Gwinnett County, Wilbanks alleges that while she was hospitalized and under medication after returning to Atlanta, Mason obtained power of attorney, which allowed him to handle Wilbanks' finances.

She says that Mason then made a $500,000 deal with Regan Media in June or July 2005 for the couple to tell their unusual story and used the money to buy a house on Hamilton Mill Parkway in Dacula.

"She did live in that home with John for a while, " said Michael Wetzel, Wilbanks' attorney. "He kicked her out of the house in May."

Wetzel said that Wilbanks is "doing well" and living in a condo in North Georgia. But, he said, Wilbanks deserves a share of the money.

"The payment was for a story that pertains to both of them, " he said.

Mason was not available for comment. Mason's attorney, James Watkins, did not return repeated calls. And Mason's father Claude Mason said he had no comment on the lawsuit. Representatives from Los Angeles-based Regan Media also did not return phone calls and e-mails.

In the lawsuit, filed Sept. 13, Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 from the media contract, an additional $250,000 in punitive damages and a long list of household items that she says her parents gave her such as a washer and dryer, a lamp and two red chairs.

If Wilbanks does receive any money from the lawsuit there may be some Gwinnett County agencies lining up to get paid. Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said his agency has not received all of the $2,550 Wilbanks was court-ordered to pay to cover expenses incurred searching for her. Duluth officials said Wilbanks has paid the city back $13,000 for their expenses. But Duluth officials have calculated that the city spent $43,000 responding to Wilbanks' hoax.

"After what Duluth has been through in the last year, nothing Jennifer does surprises me, " Duluth Mayor Shirley Lassiter said of the lawsuit. "But I feel that they are both victims here. I just hope that they can put this behind them and go their separate ways."

Wilbanks disappeared in April 2005, days before her lavishly planned wedding in Duluth, which was to have included 14 bridesmaids, 14 groomsmen and 600 guests. As she fled west, many in the wedding party and among the guests joined authorities in a search.

In the days when Wilbanks was missing dozens of police agents scoured Duluth, a $100,000 reward was offered for answers and Mason was treated as a suspect in Wilbanks' disappearance.

Police investigators pressured Mason to take a lie detector test after he resisted. Wilbanks surfaced in Albuquerque, N.M., four days after she disappeared, the day she was to have wed Mason, the son of a former Duluth mayor. She initially told police in both cities that she had been abducted. Wilbanks spun an elaborate story of being kidnapped by a Hispanic man and an Anglo woman and being sexually assaulted.

But within hours she admitted to the FBI that her story was fabricated.

Wilbanks later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, lying to police. She was placed on two years probation and served a community service sentence in Gwinnett. She also said at that time she was entering an inpatient institution for therapy.

Nationally known Philadelphia attorney Lynne Z. Gold-Biki said Wilbanks may have a good case for seeking half of the media contract money. But she called Wilbanks' case for punitive damages ridiculous.

"If I were his lawyer I would be suing her for punitive damages, " said Gold-Biki, who is the former chairwoman of the family law section of the American Bar Association. "In the days that she was missing he was dealing with the anguish of a missing fiancee and then he also was suspected of a crime."