National Roundup

Georgia
Lawsuit filed against missing financial adviser
ATLANTA (AP) — A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses an Atlanta area financial adviser who went missing a month ago of running a Ponzi scheme.

The lawsuit says Christopher Burns and companies he controlled ran the scheme using illegal promissory notes. Federal authorities have charged him with mail fraud and obtained a warrant for his arrest, according to online court records.

The FBI on Tuesday asked for the public’s help to find Burns.

Burns was a well-known financial adviser who “claimed to be an investment guru” and had a Sunday morning show on local radio and regularly appeared on local television to provide investment advice, the lawsuit says. That helped him gain the trust of potential investors, the suit says.

“Burns made himself appear to the public as a charismatic, competent, and trustworthy family man,” the lawsuit says.

Burns left his home in the Atlanta suburb of Berkeley Lake on Sept. 24, a day before he was supposed to give documents related to his business to the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a sworn statement from an FBI agent filed in court.

His wife filed a missing person report with police in Gwinnett County the next day, saying she had not been in touch with him since the evening before. Burns had told his wife he was going to his parents’ home in North Carolina, but they never saw him and were not expecting him, the agent’s statement says.

The vehicle he was driving was found abandoned in nearby Dunwoody and copies of three cashiers checks totaling more than $78,000 were found inside, the FBI agent’s statement says.

Burns, who is also being investigated by the IRS, did business through several companies, including Investus Advisers, LLC, Investus Financial, LLC, Dynamic Money and Peer Connect, LLC, the FBI has said.

Burns offered his friends, family and clients an investment opportunity in a “peer to peer” lending program offering “attractive returns in short periods of time,” according to the agent’s statement. The investors were told their money was to be loaned to businesses in need of financing with little or no risk, and they received promissory notes associated with the investment, the agent’s statement says.

The class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Susan Zimmerman and other victims of Burns’ alleged scheme. Between January 2018 and September 2020, Zimmerman invested about $350,000 of her retirement savings with Burns, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit seeks damages and legal fees.

Florida
Judge’s yard signs, donations may violate rules
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — .A local judge who is head of a vote-counting board in a north Florida county has signs supporting President Donald Trump in his front yard and has donated to the president’s re-election campaign in possible violation of rules that require people in his job to refrain from showing political partisanship.

The Florida Times-Union reports that Senior County Judge Brent Shore in Duval County has donated $170 to the Trump campaign and given $178 in the last two years to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Judicial rules bar judges from political donations of any kind, and canvassing board rules bar members from displaying a candidate’s campaign signs.

The state Division of Elections has said while campaign donations don’t count as active participation, displaying a candidate’s campaign signs would disqualify someone from serving on a canvassing board.

Shore refused to comment to the newspaper.

Washington, D.C.
Judge allows John Hinckley to publicly display his artwork
The man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan can now publicly display his writings, artwork and music, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

John Hinckley has long considered himself to be a musician and an artist. He paints and plays the guitar and has been involved in both pursuits as part of his therapy.

Hinckley has anonymously displayed his artwork. But he can now do so under his own name, according to an order from U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman.

Hinckley, who shot and wounded Reagan in 1981, must inform his treatment team of his plans to display his works. And his doctors will help him process any feedback he receives while documenting those discussions.
“If clinically indicated, they may terminate Mr. Hinckley’s ability to publicly display his creative works,” Friedman wrote.

Hinckley was 25 when he shot Reagan in March 1981. The shooting also paralyzed press secretary James Brady and injured two others. Hinckley was suffering from acute psychosis and was obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster.

When jurors found him not guilty by reason of insanity, they said he needed treatment, not a lifetime in confinement. He spent decades living at a psychiatric hospital before gradually spending more and more time with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia. He moved in with her permanently in 2016.

Wednesday’s order was agreed upon by Hinckley’s lawyer and federal prosecutors after a new risk assessment of Hinckley’s mental health was recently completed.

Barry Levine, who represents Hinckley, said at a September court hearing that Hinckley should eventually be granted unconditional release. Levine said that doctors have found that Hinckley “has sufficiently recovered his sanity and will not, in the reasonable future, be a danger to himself or others.”

But Wednesday’s order left many restrictions in place. For instance, Hinckley is still barred from owning a gun. And he’s not allowed to contact Foster or members of the Reagan and Brady families.

There was also a question at last month’s court hearing about whether Hinckley can make money from his art. Prosecutors had cited a 1995 civil settlement that involved Hinckley and any financial benefits from his name or story. But details of the settlement were not disclosed.

But Levine told The Associated Press on Wednesday that “the civil settlement does not bar the sale of any” of Hinckley’s works.

Hinckley has told doctors over the years that he regrets not being able to show or sell his paintings, most of which are landscapes, according to previously filed court documents.

Around the time that then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in January 2011, Hinckley told one of his doctors: “Wow. Is that how people see me?” Then he vented frustration about being unable to change the public’s perception.

“I don’t have a microphone in my hand. I don’t have the video camera. So no one can hear my music. No one can see my art. I have these other aspects of my life that no one knows about. I’m an artist. I’m a musician. Nobody knows that. They just see me as the guy who tried to kill Reagan,” he said.