Rainsville attorney Christopher Kyle Croft has been placed on probation by the Alabama State Bar Association, according to a written statement released Monday by the Bar's disciplinary commission.
According to the statement, Croft was suspended from practice for five years but the suspension has been deferred pending Croft's successful completion of a two-year period of probation.
Croft entered a conditional guilty plea admitting that between October 2002 and June 2005, he engaged in securities fraud. According to DeKalb Circuit Clerk Pam Simpson, Croft was found guilty in 2008 of failure to register as a securities agent.
Croft was arrested in 2006 and charged with securities fraud and the sale of unregistered securities without a license.
Alabama Securities Commission Director Joseph Borg earlier said that Croft allegedly acted as a broker-dealer, solicited an investment opportunity and received about $493,000 from people from 2001 through 2005.
It is alleged that investors were told their money would be invested in the stock market and Croft would take a percentage of the profits.
Borg said Croft allegedly took some of the investment money up front and issued false statements of profit to investors and further paid proceeds to investors from the investor's original investment principal-a practice often called a Ponzi scheme.
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