Leader of Alpharetta firm accused in $380M Ponzi scheme gets 4 years in prison

Bradford told the judge he’s deeply remorseful and ashamed for the harm he has caused and will carry that regret the rest of his life. He said he knew there were serious problems with the investment fund he was encouraging people to put their savings into, but he chose to say nothing.

“I was a coward,” Bradford said in court. “I participated in that fraud and I benefited from it, and there’s no excuse for what I did. I deceived myself and, in turn, I deceived the people who trusted me.”

The judge said she credited Bradford’s significant cooperation with the government and his remorse, but said his crime was deplorable, in part because Bradford met some of the victims through church. Johnson said some victims lost their retirement and children’s college funds and others had to remortgage their homes.

“They relied on you because of your faith and because they thought you were a good man who would not lead them astray,” Johnson told Bradford. “It’s a really serious crime because there’s a lot of people whose lives were turned upside down.”

Bradford must pay $4.2 million in restitution, to be distributed to victims, and will be under supervision for three years after his release from prison.

Lawyers for Bradford, a Peachtree Corners resident, had asked that he be sentenced to around three years in prison. They said he was not involved in all the Drive Planning fraud and lost some money as an investor, as did members of his family. And they pointed out that his guilty plea and cooperation with federal prosecutors resulted in the subsequent guilty pleas of Burkhalter and Edwards.

“Albeit late, he tried to stop the harm being caused,” Bradford’s lawyers, Daniel Griffin and Joshua Mayes, wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “He voluntarily turned over assets — having an estimated value of $10 million to help repay the victims.”

Bradford, a pastor with six children, has no criminal history, his lawyers said.

Prosecutors said Drive Planning marketed several sham investment opportunities tied to real estate between September 2020 and June 2024, falsely promising secure loans and returns of up to 22% while using new investors’ money to pay other investors. They said the firm’s leaders took millions of dollars in commissions, noting that Bradford alone received more than $2.6 million in commissions in May 2024.

“He simply did not care,” federal prosecutor Kelly Connors said in court Wednesday about Bradford. “He was ruthlessly encouraging investors to continue to invest.”

In a January letter to the court, Drive Planning investor Jim Eason said Bradford was the “marketing face” of the scheme and has shown no remorse. Eason, a 66-year-old Atlanta resident, said he lost all his retirement savings, totaling around $2 million.

“My closest friends are of similar age and lost similar monies,” Eason wrote. “We are too old to recover from the financial devastation caused to our families by Drive Planning.”

No victims spoke in court Wednesday.

A guilty plea with a domino effect

Bradford, charged in November with a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, was the first of the executives to be prosecuted. He pleaded guilty in December, acknowledging that he could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.

Burkhalter was charged in January with a single count of wire fraud, accused of spending millions of dollars from investors on a luxury yacht, a condo in Mexico and other aspects of his lavish lifestyle. He pleaded guilty later that month, facing up to 20 years in prison. In his plea deal, prosecutors said they would seek a sentence of 17½ years in prison.

Edwards was charged in February with a single count of money laundering, to which she pleaded guilty in March. Prosecutors said she used $630,000 of investor funds to buy a house in Cumming.

Edwards, who faces up to 10 years in prison, was ordered to vacate that house so it could be turned over to Drive Planning’s receiver in a related civil fraud case initiated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in August 2024.

In that case, pending before another federal judge in Atlanta, Burkhalter agreed — without admitting the SEC’s allegations against him — to hand over any allegedly ill-gotten gains and pay a civil penalty to be determined by the court.

All three executives have been on bond since their first court appearances in the criminal matter. Each waived their right to go through the federal indictment process.

In a sentencing memorandum, Edwards’ attorney, Mark Jeffrey, asked that she be sentenced to three years on probation, noting she has no criminal history and has started up an events planning company called Curated Events Group. He said she accepted responsibility for her role in the scheme, in which she had little contact with investors and worked at Burkhalter’s behest.

“The Court can rest assured that Ms. Edwards, freed of the shackles of Drive Planning and the unhealthy environment therein, will thrive and become a professional business owner, employing others, and giving back to the community,” Jeffrey wrote.

Burkhalter’s attorneys, Allison Dawson and Thomas Hawker, asked that he be sentenced to 14 years in prison. The 55-year-old grew up in the Atlanta area but now lives in Florida.

“Mr. Burkhalter is not asking for a single-digit sentence in light of the loss and impact on victims,” his lawyers wrote in a sentencing memorandum.