Former investment firm manager Arthur Field was released from prison last week after spending five days there on fraud and other charges.
Field had headed Capital Investment Funds (CIF) in Easley, which owed note holders more than $38 million when he began to dissolve the company in 2008. That triggered civil lawsuits and a criminal investigation by the state attorney general. Field was indicted by a grand jury in June 2012 and sentenced Oct. 8, 2013, to 10 years in prison for securities fraud after pleading guilty.
The indictment alleged that Field failed to disclose financial practices and important information, such as the removal of the most senior level staff at CIF and its parent company for improper financial transactions made with CIF funds.
The prosecution also argued that CIF sold promissory notes to investors and then fraudulently re-lent the money to other businesses.
Field pled guilty to one count of forgery, two counts of conspiracy and 11 counts of securities fraud.
On Oct. 18, Circuit Judge Cordell Maddox ruled that Field’s sentence would be suspended after Field served 26 months in prison. But the judge also ordered that Field be given credit for 15 months of home confinement and 33 days already spent in jail before his trial. After that, Field would serve five years probation. He also must pay $2.8 million in restitution to more than 650 note holders.
“I did what I did and I’m sorry for what I did,” Field told the court at his sentencing. “But when I did it, I did not believe they were worthless loans, and I thought we were acting in the best interest of the people.”
Many of those people were elderly clients who suffered significant losses in the collapse of CIF, the prosecution said. Fields maintained that he was unaware of the extent of “other people’s” activities, though admitted he should have known.
Field had faced up to 23 years in prison, but Maddox factored his guilty plea and cooperation into a more lenient sentenc
