A federal judge in Atlanta has handed down the maximum sentence the law allows to a financial firm founder who spent nearly four years telling ordinary savers to move their retirement money into investments that turned out not to exist. The case is one of the largest Ponzi schemes ever prosecuted out of Georgia, and it shows how a guaranteed-return pitch can drain retirement accounts, college funds and lines of credit before it finally collapses. For any household weighing a similar offer today, the sentence and the restitution order attached to it are worth understanding in detail.
How Burkhalter’s ‘REAL’ and ‘CORE Fund’ Promised Guaranteed Returns
Between September 2020 and June 2024, Todd Burkhalter and his Georgia-based firm, Drive Planning LLC, raised money from more than 2,000 investors through two products: the “Real Estate Acceleration Loan,” or REAL, and the “Cash Out Real Estate Fund,” or CORE Fund. Drive Planning told prospective investors that participating was “easy and simple” and that they did not need to be accredited investors, and it actively encouraged people to fund their stake with retirement account withdrawals, personal savings and new lines of credit. REAL was pitched as a short-term bridge-loan fund for real estate developers that would pay investors a guaranteed 10 percent return every three months; the CORE Fund promised 10 percent every six months, or 22 percent a year, from what Drive Planning described as pooled, government-protected tax lien investments.
Neither product worked the way it was described. Burkhalter directed Drive Planning to prepare “collateral sheets” listing real estate that supposedly backed investor loans, including properties that did not exist, and the firm falsely traded on a relationship with a well-known Atlanta developer, who eventually sued to stop Drive Planning from using its name. Money coming in from new investors was used to pay earlier investors and cover commissions, rather than to fund any actual loans, the defining feature of a Ponzi scheme rather than a real lending business.
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A 20-Year Sentence and a $233.7 Million Restitution Order
On August 14, 2026, U.S. District Judge Tiffany R. Johnson sentenced Burkhalter to 20 years in federal prison, the statutory maximum, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Johnson also ordered him to pay $233,777,763.82 in restitution to the more than 2,000 investors who lost money in the scheme, which prosecutors say totaled approximately $380 million. Because parole has been abolished in the federal system, Burkhalter’s sentence will run without the possibility of early release on parole.
U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg was blunt about how Burkhalter kept the scheme running, saying Burkhalter “ruthlessly encouraged” investors “to deplete their kids’ college funds, take early distributions from retirement accounts, and borrow significant sums at high interest rates” to keep money flowing into Drive Planning. Prosecutors say Burkhalter kept soliciting tens of millions of dollars even after the Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into Drive Planning in March 2024.
Where the $380 Million Went: Yachts, Jets and a Cabo San Lucas Condo
Court records detail how Burkhalter spent investor money once it came in. Prosecutors say he used roughly $2 million to buy a yacht, put $2.1 million toward a luxury condo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, spent $800,000 on vehicles including a 2020 Prevost Marathon motorcoach and two 2024 Land Rovers, chartered private jets for luxury travel, and spent $320,000 on clothing, jewelry and beauty treatments. None of that spending came from Drive Planning profits, since the firm’s REAL and CORE Fund products never generated the returns they promised, so every dollar paid to Burkhalter, to earlier investors and toward his lifestyle came directly from newer investors’ principal.
Two More Executives Sentenced While a Court-Appointed Receiver Tries to Recover Funds
Burkhalter did not run Drive Planning alone. Earlier the same week, Judge Johnson sentenced Chief Operating Officer David Bradford, 53, of Peachtree Corners, Georgia, to four years and three months in prison and ordered him to pay $4,297,878.16 in restitution after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud tied to the CORE Fund. Chief Administrative Officer Julie Edwards, 59, of Cumming, Georgia, received two years in prison and a $630,000 restitution order after pleading guilty to laundering scheme proceeds. Both will also serve three years of supervised release.
A separate civil case is still working through the recovery process. In August 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Drive Planning and Burkhalter, froze the firm’s assets, and had a receiver, Kenneth D. Murena, appointed to try to recover money for victims. That case describes the same pattern the Justice Department cited at sentencing: the SEC says Drive Planning encouraged investors to tap their savings, retirement accounts, and even open lines of credit to invest. Any actual repayment to victims, separate from the criminal restitution order against Burkhalter, is expected to come out of that receivership.
The Real Cost of Emptying a Retirement Account Early
The sentence closes the criminal case, but the pitch that built it, a guaranteed, steady return regardless of market conditions, is exactly the warning sign regulators tell ordinary investors to watch for. The SEC’s own investor-education arm lists guaranteed high returns with little or no risk, and returns that stay suspiciously consistent no matter what markets do, among the clearest red flags of a Ponzi scheme.
There’s also a real cost to the specific advice Burkhalter gave: pulling money out of a 401(k) or IRA before age 59½. Outside a handful of exceptions, including disability, certain medical expenses and a qualified emergency withdrawal, the IRS charges an additional 10 percent tax on early retirement account withdrawals, on top of the regular income tax owed on the amount withdrawn. For a household that took Burkhalter’s advice and moved retirement savings into REAL or the CORE Fund, that tax bill would have arrived long before any of the promised quarterly payments, and for most investors in this case, according to prosecutors, the payments never showed up at all.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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