Alpharetta firm executive pleads guilty in $380M Ponzi scheme

The chief administrative officer of an Alpharetta investment firm that prosecutors say was likely Georgia’s largest Ponzi scheme has pleaded guilty to an associated federal charge of money laundering.

Julie Edwards initially pleaded not guilty to the charge when she was apprehended in February, court records show. She waived indictment and was granted a $10,000 bond.

On Tuesday, Edwards appeared in front of a federal judge in Atlanta and pleaded guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors in their case alleging her former employer, Drive Planning, defrauded more than 2,000 investors out of around $380 million.

Federal prosecutors said Edwards used $630,000 of investor funds to buy a house in Cumming in July 2024, though she had learned several months earlier that Drive Planning was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

A year later, in July 2025, Edwards was ordered to vacate that house so it could be turned over to Drive Planning’s receiver in an associated civil case filed by the SEC.

Edwards is the third defendant in the related criminal case to take a plea deal.

Drive Planning’s CEO and founder, Russell Todd Burkhalter, pleaded guilty in January to wire fraud. At that time, U.S. Attorney Theodore Hertzberg said Drive Planning was likely the largest Ponzi scheme in Georgia.

The scheme ran for about four years, promising high-return investments related to and secured by real estate, prosecutors alleged. They said the firm’s leaders used millions of dollars from investors in part to fund lavish lifestyles.

David Bradford, the firm’s chief operating officer, pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Burkhalter and Bradford, both on bond, are scheduled to be sentenced in June.

Prosecutors said as Drive Planning’s chief administrative officer, Edwards was responsible for tracking investments, withdrawals and other company information.

She learned in March 2024 that the SEC was investigating Drive Planning, but she and other executives hid that from the firm’s sales agents, investors and prospective investors, prosecutors said.

Edwards sent a couple of emails to Drive Planning’s sales agents in June 2024 on behalf of the firm’s leadership team, directing the sales agents to lie to clients, according to her charging document.

It further alleges that Edwards had a brief phone conversation around that time with Burkhalter, who immediately transferred $630,000 to Edwards from a Drive Planning account that held investor funds.

When speaking with an investor in June 2024, Edwards lied about associated litigation, “laughed off the idea that Drive Planning was a scam” and falsely told the investor his investments were “solvent,” prosecutors said. They said she bought the Cumming house the following month with the investor money Burkhalter had sent to her.

Between April and June of 2024, soon after Drive planning’s leaders learned of the SEC investigation, the firm received at least $67 million in additional investments and paid over $15 million in commissions, prosecutors said. They said Bradford alone received more than $2.6 million in commissions in May 2024.

Edwards faces up to 10 years in prison. She could also be made to pay restitution and forfeit any property she illegally obtained.