The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a “faith-based” advisor in Tennessee with defrauding five clients and one other investor of more than $2.4 million in connection with the purchase of a Christian media marketing company.

Advisor Donald Anthony Wright, through his firm Retirement Specialty Group in Cookeville, sold more than $2.4 million in fraudulent promissory notes to six investors beginning in 2021 in an effort to acquire a Texas media marketing company that represented several prominent Christian pastors and evangelists, according to the SEC complaint.

Wright, 54, is a former senior pastor of Faith in the World Church, according to the complaint, and the website for his firm promoted faith-based, and Bible-safe investing until it was redirected earlier week to another firm.

The complaint was filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Northeastern Division. According to a press release issued by the SEC the same day, Wright has agreed to a permanent officer-and-director bar and authorized the court to determine the amount of the penalties, disgorgement and prejudgment interest.

“Wright used his religious affiliations to primarily target Christian clients and purported to offer a variety of financial services, including ‘faith-based investing,’” the complaint said, adding that Wright promoted his business through a SiriusXM talk show and a podcast.

The cost of the marketing company transaction was $20 million and Wright lacked the funding and “was either unwilling or unable to obtain traditional financing,” the complaint said.

Instead, Wright started working with three note issuers that would assist their customers with financing for specific projects, the SEC said.

However, each of the note issuers had a catch, according to the complaint. One allegedly agreed to loan Wright $500,000, but only after he sold $1 million in the note issuers promissory notes as collateral. The other two allegedly said Wright had to first provide them with a certain amount of capital.

“To satisfy the requirements of the note issuers, Wright began raising money from his advisory clients and at least one other investor, recommending that they invest in promissory notes issued by (or purportedly issued by) the note issuers,” the complaint said.

The notes had varying maturities and interest rates. For example, one had a one-year maturity with 6% annual interest, the SEC said, while others had a one-month duration, with principal, 20% monthly interest and an additional lump-sum payment due at maturity.

According to the SEC, in addition to the note issuers’ notes, Wright forged promissory notes of his own and used the proceeds for his own purposes. To keep from being discovered, he falsified statements and websites, and made false statements about the security of the investments and about his own investment in the acquisition, the SEC said.

In truth, the complaint said, Wright made no personal investment in the deal. In all, $2.42 million in notes were sold by Wright, with $950,000 of that being three forged notes sold to three investors, thte SEC said.

Investors asking where their assets were allegedly were told “the money is tied up in England,” or “governments need to make sure that the money is clean and no terrorists are involved,” the complaint said.  

When one of the note issuers did return $220,000 of a client’s investment to Retirement Specialty Group, Wright comingled the funds with the business account to pay for expenses instead of passing them on to the client, the SEC said.

Wright could not be reached for comment.

The SEC charges included five counts of fraud, and the agency is seeking an order permanently enjoining Wright from participating in the purchase or sale of any security, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains or unjust enrichment, prejudgment interest and a civil penalty.

Founded in 2012, Retirement Specialty Group has been an SEC-registered investment advisor since May 2022, and of its last Form ADV update in January 2024, had $26.8 million in assets under management.

The advisory is co-owned by Wright and his wife, Maria Wright, the SEC said.