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Stephen Scott Alder of Utah defrauded numerous investors in a $5.4 million Ponzi scheme under business names that included "SSA Family Trust" and "SSA Services Inc.

07/20/06 - Utah - A Washington County man has entered guilty pleas in a $5.4 million Ponzi scheme as part of a plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

Stephen Scott Alder faces a maximum of 40 years on counts of mail and wire fraud when he is sentenced Dec. 8 by U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell. Prosecutors dropped two counts of money laundering and promised to argue for reduced prison time in return for his pleas.

Alder, 49, was indicted last September for defrauding numerous investors between January 1999 and May 2003 under business names that included "SSA Family Trust" and "SSA Services Inc."

A Ponzi scheme, also called a pyramid scheme, promises unusually high returns to investors by paying them out of money paid in by subsequent victims. In such scams, there are seldom any real net revenues generated by an actual business.
In Alder's case, he told investors he was putting their money into "a high-return asset management program" and an international currency fund. In reality, he invested just $1.36 million in his companies, using the remainder for his personal and business expenses and to pay initial investors.

U.S. Attorney spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said the exact number of people victimized by Alder over the run of his four-year fraud is unknown; part of the plea agreement calls on him to help identify and locate his investors.

Among other things, Alder has admitted mailing a bogus investment brochure to a client in San Diego in October 2000. That same month he arranged for a $10,000 wire transfer from a California bank to a Utah account in order to obtain money from one of his victims.

"I arranged this wire transfer in order to obtain money . . . based on false representations and promises I had made or caused to be made," Alder states in court documents.

In addition to prison time, Alder faces a maximum fine of $250,000 on each of the two counts in his plea deal, and three years of supervised probation following completion of any time behind bars.

The FBI has asked people who think they may have been victimized by Alder to contact their St. George office at 435-628-7499.