Marietta Attorney Charged in Investment Scheme

Robert P. Copeland, 48, of Marietta, has been charged in a criminal information relating to a $28 million investment fraud scheme that duped more than 125 investors.

According to the United States Attorney's office, Copeland, a Marietta-based real estate attorney, allegedly operated a fraudulent investment scam, commonly known as a “Ponzi” scheme, from at least 2004 through early 2009. He solicited individuals directly, through seminars he participated in, and through financial planners to whom he paid commissions in exchange for referrals of investment clients.

Copeland reportedly represented that he would use an investor’s money in lucrative real estate financing and/or development activities, such as by funding a mortgage or bridge loan to a real estate purchaser who needed financing.

In the scheme, Copeland reportedly promised returns as high as 15% every 6 to 12 months, and would furnish the investor a note and security deed that would purport to document the investor’s secured interest in a particular piece of real estate. Based on these representations, Copeland raised more than $40 million since 2004 from hundreds of investors nationwide. Some of these investors were elderly and used up their retirement funds.

The Criminal Information alleges that Copeland’s investment business was a scam. He was engaged in little if any real estate financing, development, or other profit-making activities with investor funds. The notes and security deeds he furnished investors were in almost all cases bogus.

Instead of using investor funds in the ways he had represented, he operated a so-called “Ponzi” scheme, in which Copeland used the money from new investors to pay earlier investors the distributions that he had promised to them. When the time came to pay the new investors, he would have to solicit and take in yet more investments. This created an unsustainable and ever-expanding mountain of debt. When the scheme collapsed in early 2009, Copeland was left owing over $28 million to over 125 victims.

Copeland was charged with one count of wire fraud, which encompassed his entire five-year scheme. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, full restitution to all victims, and forfeiture of any assets traceable to the proceeds of the offense.