A Massachusetts fund manager has pleaded guilty to criminal charges of security fraud for misappropriating more than $15 million from investment funds he controlled, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday.

Daniel Thibeault, president and CEO of a group of Massachusetts-based investment advisory companies, also was charged civilly last year by the SEC in the same scheme. The civil charges are still pending.

He pled guilty to using the fund money to make fictitious loans and to obstruction of justice by lying to the SEC numerous times during the ageny's investigation.

Thibeault operated Graduate Leverage LLC, an asset management and financial advisory firm in Waltham, Mass., along with GL Capital Partners LLC and other related entities, according to the SEC. They were the advisors for GL Beyond Income Fund, whose assets supposedly consisted primarily of individual variable rate consumer loans.

According to the SEC complaint, Thibeault and other defendants solicited investments in the GL Beyond Income Fund by representing that investors' money would be pooled and used to make or purchase consumer loans, but they then diverted the money and created fictitious paperwork to mislead investors.