NC man faked ties to Oprah before swindling church members out of $22 million, feds say
A 70-year-old man who ran an entertainment company in North Carolina feigned connections with Disney and Oprah for 13 years before investigators caught on, federal prosecutors said.
By then, court documents show he’d swindled investors out of $22 million.
Hal H. Brown Jr., of Asheville, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and money laundering on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release. The charges carry prison sentences between 10 and 20 years.
Brown reportedly orchestrated the Ponzi scheme through his entertainment company, Oodles Inc.
“Individual victims invested anywhere from a few thousand to a few million dollars in Oodles,” the news release states. “To induce victims to invest their money, Brown falsely represented that Oodles owned hundreds of millions of dollars in intellectual property, namely family entertainment shows and movies.”
He then told investors Oodles was selling the property to entertainment giants such as Disney, Paramount and Apple, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
“Brown repeatedly lied to victims about the imminent sale of those intellectual properties to various well-known media companies,” according to court documents. “Rather than use the victims’ money as he had represented, Brown used a significant amount of victim money to fund his personal lifestyle.”
He also used the money to pay previous investors, prosecutors said, and impersonated employees on “fake letterheads from well-known companies and law firms” to perpetuate the scheme.
A grand jury indicted him in October.
Brown targeted people who “were at, or near, retirement age” — including members of his church, according to the indictment.
Court documents show the scheme started in 2006 and continued through September 2019.
During that time, Brown held himself out as a University of North Carolina graduate who traveled the world before starting his own production companies, the Observer reported, citing the now defunct Oodles website.
He claimed to have “produced literally thousands of individual pieces of music and full musical scores” for brand giants such as Disney, Sea World, Holiday on Ice, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
Brown also said he wrote and produced the the launch campaigns for “Wheel of Fortune,” “Jeopardy!”, “The Cosby Show” and “Oprah.”
“Hal is married with two young children, one with special needs,” the Oodles website stated. “Hal and his wife Stephanie are also in the process of adopting two young children from Africa. Their hearts are as one when it comes to the focus they put daily on their faith and family.”
Brown faces up to 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine on the securities charge and up to 10 years in prison on the money laundering charge. He could also owe up to double the proceeds from the Ponzi scheme or a $250,000 fine.
