The SEC charged former college football Jim Donnan with fraud, alleging he teamed up with an Ohio man to conduct an $80 million Ponzi scheme that allegedly included other college coaches and former players as victims.
According to the SEC, Mr. Donnan—a college football Hall of Fame inductee who guided teams at Marshall University and the University of Georgia and later became a television commentator—conducted the fraud with his business partner, Gregory Crabtree, through a West Virginia-based company called GLC Ltd.
The SEC said Messrs. Donnan and Crabtree told investors that GLC was earning substantial profits in the wholesale liquidation business and promised returns between 50% to 380%. However, it said only about $12 million of the $80 million raised from nearly 100 investors was actually used for business purposes, and the “remaining funds were used to pay fake returns to earlier investors or stolen for other uses” by Messrs. Donnan and Crabtree.