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Investment Advisor Brought in on Fraud Charges

Posted on May 25, 2011

A Minnesota investment advisor has been indicted on federal money laundering and fraud charges, which allege she used investors' money for personal use and lied about returns.

The advisor, 47-year-old Renee Marie Brown, is charged with using $500,000 of investors' money to buy a condominium for own use and to repay earlier investors expecting a return.

In 2009, Brown created Investors Income Fund X LLC, promising investors an 8-9 percent return on a bond fund. Though she said she invested $200,000 of her own money, she did not. There was not even a bond fund to begin with.

Brown now faces five counts of securities fraud, five counts of wire fraud, and one count of money laundering after she transferred money from Fund X to her personal account. She has pleaded not guilty.

"On the heels of a near 20-year career, Renee Brown maintains her long-held innocence. And, as innocent people do, she looks forward to the trial," said Paul Engh, Brown's attorney.

Brown has a law degree to her name; however, she was denied admission to the Minnesota bar because of an earlier guilty plea in an arson case. According to a 1991 Supreme Court opinion, she also had a history of “troubling incidents of falsely reporting crimes.”

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