SEC says financial firm is at center of Ponzi scheme; Indy partner faces lawsuits

Legal problems are piling up against a now-defunct Georgia financial firm called Drive Planning LLC and its Indianapolis-based managing partner, Gerardo Linarducci.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Drive is at the center of a $300 million-plus nationwide Ponzi scheme, and in mid-August, the SEC obtained a preliminary injunction, asset freeze and other emergency relief against Atlanta-based Drive and its founder and CEO, Russell Todd Burkhalter of St. Petersburg, Florida.

At the time, Drive had three offices: a Fishers location at Hub & Spoke, 8100 E. 106th St., and offices in both St. Petersburg and Atlanta. Linarducci was living in a $1.95 million Geist home, and Drive had filed plans with Fishers city officials to build a new office on an 0.88-acre parcel the firm owned at 13562 E. 116th St.

Now, as part of his efforts to recover assets that can be returned to investors, Drive’s court-appointed receiver is working to reclaim both the 116th Street parcel and Linarducci’s home.

Drive, Burkhalter and Linarducci are also facing multiple lawsuits in Indiana and beyond, and additional cases could be forthcoming. The SEC’s investigation is ongoing, and the FBI is also seeking information from people who invested with Drive.

Reached last week via email, Linarducci declined to comment to IBJ, referring queries to his legal counsel and noting that “this has been a very difficult time for me and my family.”

Linarducci’s attorney, Kevin Koons of Kroger Gardis & Regas LLC, did not respond to an email and a phone message from IBJ.

Burkhalter did not respond to a phone message and a text message, and his Atlanta-based attorney, Aaron Danzig, did not respond to a phone message and email.

But in his official legal response to the SEC’s allegations, Burkhalter has denied that he was running a Ponzi scheme through Drive.

In that response, filed Oct. 22, Burkhalter said he “acted in honest and reasonable reliance on the advice and experience of others as to matters within the area of their expertise and experience.”

The receiver’s report

In a report filed Oct. 30, Drive’s court-appointed trustee, Miami attorney Kenneth Murena, said he is still working to identify all of Drive’s investors. So far, Murena said in his report, which covers the period of Aug. 13 to Sept. 30, he has identified nearly 2,400 investors who transferred more than $360 million to Drive.

Murena said he anticipates finding additional investors as he and a forensic accountant continue reconstructing Drive’s financial records—a challenging task since Drive did not use accounting software to track its finances. Instead, Murena’s report says, Drive kept information in an Excel spreadsheet that contained “a multitude of erroneous, unclear or incomplete entries.”

Murena said he has taken control of more than $51 million in Drive’s bank accounts and liquidated more than $1.1 million in cryptocurrency that Burkhalter had held.

The receiver said he has also taken control of at least $35 million in real estate in Florida and Georgia that was owned by certain relief defendants—parties who were named in the SEC lawsuit as having improperly received funds from Drive’s activities. (Linarducci was not named as a relief defendant.) Also seized was Burkhalter’s 70-foot yacht named Live More, valued at nearly $3 million.

In the report, Murena also said he is working to secure multiple properties either owned by Drive or purchased by other parties with funds from Drive’s investors. Those properties include a single-family home in Indianapolis that Drive purchased for Linarducci and a Fishers property that Drive purchased for $625,000 with the intent of building its new office on the site, the report says.

The report does not include the addresses of the Indianapolis and Fishers properties, and Murena told IBJ via email that he is prohibited from publishing addresses in court filings.

But according to publicly available property records, Drive owns a 0.88-acre parcel at 13562 E. 116th St., and Gerardo and Jennifer Linarducci own a Geist home that they purchased for $1.95 million in 2023.

Murena said in the report that the Fishers property is currently valued at approximately $800,000, and he is still working to determine a value for the Linarducci home.

In its lawsuit, which was filed Aug. 13, the SEC alleges that Drive and Burkhalter encouraged investors to tap into their savings and retirement accounts and to open lines of credit to invest in what were described as real estate development projects.

The investors were told they would earn 10% interest on their investments every three months, but Drive did not have legitimate profitable business activities that could generate this rate of return, the SEC’s complaint alleges. “Instead, in classic Ponzi fashion, Burkhalter used money from new investors to pay the supposed ‘returns’ to existing investors and to maintain a luxurious lifestyle,” the complaint says.

Linarducci suit

Additional lawsuits filed by Indiana investors contain similar allegations.

On Sept. 9, Indiana investor Rachel Lynn Williamson and New Jersey investor Constance Novoa filed a lawsuit against Linarducci and two of his firms, Integrity Wealth Partners LLC and Ducci Enterprise LLC.

According to the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office, Linarducci established Integrity Wealth Partners on July 17 and Ducci Enterprise in May 2022.

In their complaint, Williamson and Novoa allege that Linarducci recommended they “and countless others invest in Drive Planning, ignoring their risk tolerance and causing them to lose large sums of money.”

The complaint also alleges that Linarducci and other sales agents received a 4% commission from Burkhalter and Drive on the investments they brought in, including amounts that investors chose to “roll over” into a new investment after 90 days.

Those sales commissions totaled $1.92 million during a recent two-week period, the complaint alleges.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to certify their complaint as a class-action lawsuit on behalf of others who invested in Drive through Linarducci.

That group of investors numbers “at least 50 or more,” the complaint alleges.

“We think that Mr. Linarducci was one of the largest sellers,” said Jeffrey Sonn, an Aventura, Florida-based attorney who is representing Williamson and Novoa.

Novoa alleges that she invested a total of $50,351 from August 2022 to July 2024.

Williamson says she loaned Drive $22,000 in September 2022 and $90,000 three months later.

This June, Williamson alleges, she texted Linarducci multiple times to ask why she had not received her money back and to request withdrawal of her funds. On June 25, the complaint says, Linarducci texted her back to say he had resigned from Drive and was not allowed to talk about any Drive terms or contracts.

Williamson and Novoa accuse Linarducci of making untrue and/or misleading statements to persuade them to invest in Drive—statements that “he should have known were false,” according to the complaint.

Among their other allegations, the plaintiffs also accuse Linarducci of violating Indiana securities law by selling unregistered securities and by not being licensed to sell securities.

According to the Indiana Department of Insurance, Linarducci has been licensed to sell insurance in Indiana since 1996. The Indiana Secretary of State’s Office, which oversees and enforces Indiana’s securities law, said Linarducci is not currently registered to sell securities in Indiana. He was previously registered as a broker-dealer agent, but that registration was terminated in 2021, said the office’s communications director, Lindsey Eaton.

Eaton declined to say whether the Secretary of State’s Office is investigating Linarducci.

More trouble

In a separate Indiana case, Hancock County resident Bryan Burney filed a civil suit against Drive and Burkhalter on Aug. 15 in Hamilton Superior Court.

In his complaint, Burney alleges that, this May, an unnamed Drive sales agent contacted him to pitch him on an investment described as a real estate acceleration loan, or REAL, which is a short-term loan to fund real estate developments.

Burney alleges that he made what he understood to be a $48,550 loan to Drive on May 15, with the agreement that he would receive that money back, plus 10% interest, by Aug. 15.

But, Burney alleges, he never recovered his money. Instead, on July 23, he received an email from Burkhalter that said the SEC was reviewing Drive’s investment funds and had asked Drive not to sell any assets or make distributions to investors until the review had concluded.

Because Burney’s lawsuit is against Burkhalter and Drive, the case has been put on hold while the SEC’s case proceeds.

Williamson and Novoa’s case is ongoing. In their complaint, the two said they did not name Burkhalter and Drive because the ongoing SEC case would prohibit them from doing so.

There could be additional Drive-related legal action to come.

No criminal charges have been filed, but on Aug. 30, the FBI’s Atlanta division issued a statement asking Drive investors to come forward.

The FBI’s online questionnaire asks questions such as how much the respondents invested, how they heard about Drive, whether they were working with an investment adviser in connection with their Drive investment and the name of that adviser.

And in a document filed Aug. 22 as part of its case, the SEC advised the court of its intent to continue its investigation. The ongoing investigation, the SEC said, would focus on whether additional individuals and entities not named in the original complaint violated securities laws and/or received proceeds from the alleged activities. The SEC’s statement did not say how many parties it is investigating or who they are.

In the meantime, Linarducci appears to be moving forward.

On his LinkedIn page, he describes himself as a “Performance coach/Creative and passionate/Storyteller/Transforming ideas into impactful designs.”

“Starting over isn’t a setback; it’s a chance to rebuild with the wisdom you’ve gained,” Linarducci posted last week. “Embrace the opportunity to realign with your purpose, reignite your passion, and create a path that’s truer to who you are now. Every ending is just a powerful beginning waiting to happen.”•