A Florida man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after a court found he ran a sprawling Ponzi scheme that siphoned roughly $380 million from more than 2,000 investors through a Georgia-based advisory firm called Drive Planning.
Todd Burkhalter, 55, of St. Petersburg, Florida, received the maximum federal sentence and was ordered to pay $233,777,763.82 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release. Prosecutors say he ran the scheme through Drive Planning LLC and marketed two main products — a “Real Estate Acceleration Loan” called REAL and a “Cash Out Real Estate Fund” known as the CORE Fund.
Federal filings and court testimony show Drive Planning pitched REAL and CORE as low-barrier, high-return opportunities and encouraged people to pull money from retirement accounts, savings, and lines of credit. Investors were told they did not need to be accredited and were guaranteed unusually high periodic returns, a red flag investigators later documented in detail.
“Todd Burkhalter lured investors to send millions of dollars to Drive Planning for investments that he knew didn’t actually exist,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “He promised investors that they were guaranteed substantial returns on their investments, and he ruthlessly encouraged them to deplete their kids’ college funds, take early distributions from retirement accounts, and borrow significant sums at high interest rates. The sentences in this case should discourage other financial advisors from choosing insatiable greed and lies over honest investment strategies.”
“Todd Burkhalter organized what is likely the largest Ponzi scheme in Georgia history to fund an extravagant lifestyle. He even continued to exploit victims while under federal investigation,” said Marlo Graham, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta.
According to prosecutors, Drive Planning advertised REAL as a bridge-loan program that would pay a 10 percent return every three months and claimed investments were fully collateralized by real estate. In practice, Burkhalter directed the creation of fraudulent collateral sheets listing properties and valuations that either were fictitious or not actually pledged against investor funds.
The company also misrepresented relationships with developers, at times invoking a prominent Atlanta developer’s name in promissory notes and marketing materials. That developer later sued Drive Planning and Burkhalter to stop the unauthorized use of its name after discovering the false associations in promotional materials.
The CORE Fund was promoted as “100% Passive Income from Tax Liens,” promising 10 percent every six months or 22 percent annually for up to three years, and represented as pooled, government-protected, and fully collateralized. In reality, Drive Planning stopped investing new money into CORE after roughly December 9, 2022, though it continued to solicit funds and collected at least $4.1 million from people who believed they were buying into that fund.
Burkhalter ran REAL as a classic Ponzi from early on: initial REAL receipts paid earlier investors and commissions instead of financing bridge loans or joint ventures. Within months of the first $50,000 REAL investment, at least $21,000 was diverted to repay a prior investor, and other early inflows paid personal bills and legal fees rather than real estate projects.
Investors’ money served three main uses: paying other investors, funding sales commissions and agent payouts, and underwriting Burkhalter’s personal spending. For example, prosecutors documented the following expenditures:
- $2 million to purchase a yacht;
- $2.1 million as part of a purchase of a luxury condo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico;
- $800,000 on multiple luxury vehicles, including a 2020 Prevost Marathon motorcoach and two 2024 Land Rovers;
- Millions of dollars on luxury travel, including chartering private jets; and
- $320,000 on clothing, jewelry, and beauty treatments.
Even after the SEC began investigating Drive Planning around March 2024, Burkhalter and others allegedly continued to solicit tens of millions of dollars for REAL and CORE. By the time authorities moved in, more than 2,000 investors had lost roughly $380 million to the scheme.
In August 2024 the SEC obtained a temporary restraining order and filed related civil enforcement actions, and a court-appointed receiver, Kenneth D. Murena, now oversees efforts to recover assets and repay victims. Two other Drive Planning executives were sentenced earlier: David Bradford, the former COO, received four years and three months and was ordered to pay $4,297,878.16 in restitution, while Julie Edwards, the former Chief Administrative Officer, was sentenced to two years and ordered to pay $630,000.
The defendants will serve their terms without the possibility of federal parole. The FBI led the criminal probe with substantial assistance from the SEC, and Assistant United States Attorney Kelly K. Connors and former Assistant United States Attorney Alex R. Sistla prosecuted the case.
