Georgia Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Ponzi Investment Fraud
An attorney in Marietta, Georgia was allegedly soliciting more than just elder abuse cases – he has been charged with luring investors and operating a Ponzi scheme worth $40 million.
Last week, Robert P. Copeland pled guilty to a single count of wire fraud. Copeland solicited investments through elder law and estate planning seminars arranged by his law firm. He recruited unsuspecting elderly clients from Georgia, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and South Carolina. He worked with six investment planners who were paid commissions for referring victims to him.
According to investigators, Copeland began soliciting investors about 10 years after he began practicing as an attorney. He promised investors that their funds would be used as short term loans for real estate investment. He told them that when he was able to sell the properties, he would be able to pay them returns as high as 15 to 18 percent. Copeland operated a firm called Advance Asset Strategies, assuring investors in his brochure that ”your loan is secured by the actual property that the real estate investor purchases”.
It helped Copeland that he was a reputed, licensed attorney who regularly spoke at seminars and had co-authored a book on estate planning. He combined investors’ funds with money that flowed in from his law practice. Very little of this money actually found its way into real estate developments, and there were, therefore, no profits from the project. In the classic workings of a Ponzi investment fraud, Copeland began to recruit new investors furiously, using their money to pay off earlier investors.
Copeland's sentencing is set for July 10th. The Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered Copeland to repay stolen investor money. From senior citizens to Madoff’s duped charities, it seems no one was too weak or vulnerable for these Ponzi scheme fraudsters to prey on.
