A former financial advisory group executive accused of running a Ponzi scheme has pleaded guilty IN THE CASE, according to Financial Advisor.
53-year-old David Bradford, the former chief operating officer of Drive Planning LLC in Alpharetta, Georgia, entered the plea to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said he was involved in a multi-year Ponzi scheme that defrauded the firm’s clients out of millions of dollars.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia stated that Drive Planning marketed several investments, including the “Cash Out Real Estate Fund,” or “CORE Fund,” as “easy and simple,” advising prospective investors that the fund provided “100% Passive Income from Tax Liens.”
According to the charges, the firm guaranteed investors a return of 10% every six months or a 22% return per year for up to three years, and misrepresented that investors’ contributions to the CORE Fund were pooled together, government-protected, and fully collateralized. As part of the scheme, Bradford created a marketing brochure to promote the CORE Fund, which was shared with Drive Planning’s sales agents to solicit investors.
But prosecutors said the money from the investors was actually being used for other purposes, including to pay off other Drive Planning investors, make commission payments to Drive Planning’s agents, and pay for personal expenditures.
Bradford and others at Drive Planning further concealed the scheme by failing to disclose that Drive Planning did not invest any funds in the CORE Fund after approximately December 9, 2022. The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that even after the SEC began investigating Drive Planning around March 2024, Bradford and others continued to solicit investments for the CORE Fund. Drive Planning was reported to have received at least $4.1 million from CORE Fund investors.
“Bradford betrayed the trust of his clients, family, and friends by encouraging them to make millions in bogus investments,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate and aggressively prosecute all forms of investment fraud.”
In August 2024, the SEC obtained a temporary restraining order against Drive Planning and filed separate civil enforcement actions against Drive Planning and others in federal court. The SEC sued the company’s owner, Russell Todd Burkhalter, accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme by selling unregistered securities in the form of “Real Estate Acceleration Loans,” and said the firm described these as bridge loan opportunities.
“As of the end of June 2024, over 2,000 investors had invested more than $300,000,000 in REAL,” the agency said at the time. The defendants “encouraged people to tap their savings, their IRAs, and even lines of credit, to invest in [the loans]. As of early May 2024, the scheme was receiving applications for over a million dollars every day, driven by an organization of more than 100 sales agents.”
The SEC alleged that Drive Planning and Burkhalter used investor funds to pay for luxury items such as clothing, jewelry and beauty treatments, as well as on luxury vacations and charters for private jets and luxury car services.
Bradford, of Peachtree Corners, Ga., will be sentenced March 17, 2026.
Hyman Cotter PC routinely represents investors harmed when financial professionals and their firms engaged in misconduct that caused their clients investment losses. Our team includes lawyers who have worked for large financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley and UBS Financial Services, and regulatory bodies such as the SEC. If you think your financial professional or firm engaged in misconduct that caused you investment losses, contact Hyman Cotter PC at 312-291-4600 or through our online contact form for a no-cost evaluation of your matter.
