Southern California Couple and Mother Arrested in Alleged Ponzi Scheme

A Southern California couple and their mother were arrested and have been charged with violating multiple sections of the state’s penal code and corporations code.

Arrested were Anthony Trae Carlson, 42, Mariah Waterfall O’Brien, 40, and Arvina Joyce Carlson, 68.

“This family conspired to rip off honest investors,” Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said in a statement announcing the arrests.

Carlson was charged with 40 felony counts, his wife O’Brien and mother Arvina Carlson were each charged with 23 felony counts.

If convicted on all counts, Carlson faces a maximum sentence of 27 years, 8 months in state prison while both Arvina Carlson and O’Brien face a maximum sentence of 21 years in state prison.

According to California Department of Insurance investigators, between 2005 and 2008, the suspects participated in an elaborate Ponzi scheme to defraud victims out of their investments.

Suspects represented to victims that they either owned or had invested in an insurance company involved in the bail industry called State Bonding California, and that the company conducted business in over 44 states and produced over one billion dollars in annual revenue, according to investigators.

The investments were supposedly guaranteed with returns ranging between 19 to 21 percent, with at least $2.5 million taken from three different couples and one individual, according to investigators.

Investigators later determined that some of the monies collected from the victims were used to fund a lavish Hollywood lifestyle being lived by Carlson and O’Brien in the hills of Los Feliz, Caif.

Topics California