Former Charlotte Broker Pleads guilty to $2.5M Ponzi Scheme
From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law Offices:
Claude Darrell McDougal, a former registered investment advisor from Charlotte, pleaded guilty to orchestrating a Ponzi scheme.
In 2005, McDougal created US Financial Alliance Consultants LLC, which was not registered as a securities dealer in North Carolina. He defrauded investors (who often were elderly and who had invested their life savings) by telling them to invest in his company and by promising fixed rates of return of 6 percent to 15 percent annually.
However, McDougal invested only about one half of the investors’ money. The other supposed payoutsactually were funds from new investors, not profits generated by investing clients’ money. McDougal used about $1.19 million of investors’ money to support his own lifestyle.
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