A Winter Park man was recently arrested for his role in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced Wednesday.

The charges were the second major allegation of fraud against Jerald Benjamin Clawson, following an investigation into a purported pay phone scheme in the 2000s.

Clawson, 74, was arrested Thursday in Winter Park by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office after FDLE secured a warrant for his arrest. He is currently in custody at the Orange County Jail, records show.

The arrest followed an investigation by FDLE which began in October 2023 when the agency received information that Clawson would solicit real estate investments through cash and bridge loans and promised his alleged victims a guaranteed return, which never happened, according to an FDLE news release.

The investigation found Clawson obtained several million dollars from the alleged victims, which did not go to any legitimate investments but were used by him to his personal benefit in what FDLE called a Ponzi scheme, the release said.

The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office also participated in the investigation.

FDLE said he was arrested on one count of organized scheme to defraud and one count of unlawful use of unregistered securities.

Clawson previously faced allegations of fraud from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency accused him and another of promoting “a massive fraudulent scheme” through the use of insurance agents and over the Internet in which the company at the center of the scheme raised more than $74 million from more than 2,000 mostly elderly investors, according to a 2001 news release from the SEC.

A federal judge ordered the case closed that year because it was in the process of being settled.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/03/fdle-winter-park-man-charged-in-real-estate-ponzi-scheme/