ROSEBURG. Ore. – Brian K. Brush of Long Beach is a prominent Southern Oregon businessman whose boat company is well known to the sport fishing community.

Considerable details about Brush’s background appear in the archives of the News-Review newspaper in Roseburg and the Mail-Tribune in Medford.

Brush, 47, is a former Medford police officer who has enjoyed considerable success in a second career with North River Boats Inc., a boat builder, and North River Marine, the company’s affiliated retail vendor, with stores in all three West Coast states.

He also was a leader of the emotionally charged 2006 campaign against Jon Englund of Astoria and his businesses after Englund, a member of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission, voted to increase the allocation of Columbia spring chinook to commercial fishermen. The decision angered sport fishermen and Brush made public that he had cancelled his business with Englund Marine Supply and encouraged others around the state to do the same.

But Brush is also known to law enforcement agencies in Oregon. The FBI has investigated him and North River Boats for wire fraud earlier this year, according to the News-Review.

The newspaper reported that the FBI issued the search warrant April 2 at the North River Boats’ production factory in Green, Ore., and confiscated reports, records and files, and made digital copies of computer hard drives. Five days later, the federal search warrant affidavit became available and revealed that FBI agents suspected North River Marine had illegally inflated inventory reports and invoices to obtain millions of dollars of funding from Wells Fargo Bank, the paper revealed.

American Express filed a lawsuit in June in Douglas County Circuit Court against the company and Brush, claiming they had charged $486,064 and not paid it back, the News-Review reported.