Bryan Noel Indicted for Conspiracy and Mail Fraud
Former Owner of CEP, Inc. Charged in 28-Count Federal Indictment

ASHEVILLE, NC—Bryan Noel, 39, of Hendersonville, NC, has been indicted and arrested on one count alleging conspiracy to commit mail fraud, 25 separate counts alleging mail fraud, and two separate counts alleging making a false oath in connection with a bankruptcy proceeding, all in connection with an investment scheme which resulted in losses of approximately $7 million. Noel made his initial appearance before a U.S. Magistrate Judge today and was detained pending a hearing. That hearing is scheduled for Friday, June 5, 2009, at 12:00 p.m.

Today’s announcement is made by Edward R. Ryan, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, and Owen Harris, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in North Carolina.

“We know that numerous victims have waited a long time for this day,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Ryan. “ We believe that the filing of these allegations is the first of many steps toward seeing justice served and recouping some of their losses,” he added.

According to the indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury sitting in Asheville on June 3 and filed under seal, from around January 2003 until about July 2006, in Henderson County, Noel and others solicited over 100 clients to invest large sums of their retirement savings with Certified Estate Planners, Inc. (“CEP”) by promising a conservative investment strategy. The indictment alleges that in about 1999 Noel created CEP to solicit investors and to offer estate planning services geared toward retirees. The indictment alleges that shortly after the initial investments were collected, without the investors’ knowledge, several million dollars of the investors’ assets were diverted, thereby significantly decreasing the value of the investments. According to the allegations contained in the indictment, those funds were diverted to Noel’s start-up lumber composite company. The indictment alleges that thereafter the value of the assets was continually misrepresented on the quarterly statements mailed to investors so that they would not know the true diminished value of their assets. In summary, the indictment alleges that by July 2006, Noel and an unindicted co-conspirator had misrepresented to investors that their assets had grown to a total of approximately $16 million, when in reality, investors’ assets had shrunk to only approximately $1 million. According to the indictment, Noel filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in August of 2007.

Noel is separately charged in counts two through twenty-six with substantive violations of mail fraud alleging that he used the U.S. mail to cause false quarterly statements to be delivered to his investors for the purpose of further executing his alleged scheme to defraud. The indictment was unsealed following the arrest of Bryan Noel earlier today.

If convicted, Noel faces a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment on each of the conspiracy and mail fraud counts, five years’ imprisonment on each of the counts alleging false oaths in a bankruptcy proceeding, and a maximum $250,000 fine for each count.

The case was investigated by the FBI, and the prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Rikard of the Western District of North Carolina.

The details contained in the indictment are allegations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.