Crime & Safety

Greenville Attorney Pleads Guilty to Charges Related to Easley Securities Fraud Case

Fredrick Scott Pfeiffer pled guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud charges.

Attorney General Alan Wilson announced the guilty plea and sentencing of Frederick Scott Pfeiffer on Wednesday, September 18, 2013. 

At a hearing before the Honorable Cordell Maddox at the Anderson County Courthouse in Anderson, SC, Fredrick Scott Pfeiffer pled guilty to State Grand Jury felony charges of one count of conspiracy pursuant to South Carolina Code 16-17-410, and two counts of securities fraud pursuant to South Carolina Code 35-1-508(a)(1).  He was sentenced by Judge Maddox to ten (10) years in prison, suspended upon six (6) years of service, and five (5) years probation on the first securities charge; a consecutive ten (10) years suspended on the service of five (5) years probation on the second securities charge; and three (3) years for the conspiracy charge, to be the be served concurrently.  Additionally, restitution will be determined at a later date.  Pfeiffer, an attorney, had been indicted by the State Grand Jury in June 2012 and again in June 2013 for various offenses.

Pfeiffer was indicted for his role in the operation of Capital Investment Funding, LLC ("CIF"), a company in Easley, S.C. that received investments from South Carolina citizens in order to relend the money to other business entities.  Pfeiffer served at times as attorney for CIF and also had ownership interests and managerial roles in related entities, including Cosimo, LLC, a major relender of CIF.  Pfeiffer pled guilty, in part, to concealing from investors Arthur Field's ownership interests in Cosimo through use of a fictitious person called "Henry Rex."  Further, Pfeiffer willfully engaged in commercially unreasonable business practices and transactions with Cosimo in order to continue to generate profits, fees, and other monies for himself, his business entities, and his law firm, to the detriment of Cosimo’s ability to repay the money it had borrowed from CIF.  Specifically, Pfeiffer caused Cosimo to continue to loan new money from CIF investors through Cosimo to defaulting debtors with clearly insufficient collateral, often to allow them to bring prior loans current and give the illusion that Cosimo and thus CIF were being paid.  Meanwhile, Pfeiffer continued to collect his fees and profits on each of these illusory transactions.

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When CIF declared a winding up in January of 2008, approximately $38,000,000 was and is still outstanding to CIF investors.  Of this, over $10,000,000 is owed by Cosimo.

The case was investigated by the South Carolina Attorney General's Office.  It was prosecuted by Assistant Deputy Attorney General S. Creighton Waters and Assistant Attorney General Brian T. Petrano.

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