Deep Southern roots, ultra conservative politics and stark contradictions have been the defining characteristics of the Anderson County man accused of running a Ponzi scheme that swindled hundreds of investors out of millions of dollars.

Ron Wilson came of age on a small Tennessee farm, which he left as a young man to preach the gospel of John Birch. His love of all things Confederate, and his distrust of all things federal brought him respectability as an Anderson County politician. The trust that came with it, according to federal and state authorities, led people to invest $90 million in his fraudulent silver investment company.

The allegations against him put Wilson in the company of businessmen across the country who have been accused of bilking thousands of investors out of billions of dollars during the nation's longest postwar recession.

Federal agents claim Wilson ran one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in South Carolina history.

They say it may have bought the million dollar Easley compound, with an eight-foot stone wall perimeter, that Wilson built for himself and his family in 2008, and their hundred-acre farm. It's a far cry from the life to which he was born in 1943.

Ponzi schemes

A Ponzi scheme, named after a con man who immigrated from Italy in the early part of the 20th century, depends on money from new investors to provide a return for old ones. Ultimately the scheme collapses because the "investment" is not real.

Wilson has been charged with running a scheme that lost at least $59 million of his investors' money since 2001. Investigators have claimed that Wilson sold certificates for silver that did not exist.

In a Ponzi scheme, investors who want to cash out have to be paid their returns or they often appeal to authorities to investigate. Fraudulent operators bend over backward to keep suspicious investors happy and quiet, state securities investigators said.

Keeping things quiet is how Ron Wilson flew under the radar of state investigators for 16 years, they claim, between a 1996 cease-and-desist order against his business and the discovery in late 2011 that he had continued selling and had bought little, if any, silver for his investors.

Federal officials claim Wilson used some investors' money to pay others, to support a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family and to give donations to conservative political causes.

His political rhetoric, along with a generous check-writing hand, made him friends and political allies in the halls of government in Anderson County and throughout the state. He was invited to political fundraisers up until the day allegations of fraud were made public in March. A critic and skeptic of government, he nevertheless sought and received both elected and appointed positions.

Bad timing

The years that authorities say Wilson operated illegally were not the best for a business built on fraud. It's easier to hide fraud in boom times, they say.

After 2008, when Bernard Madoff's $65 billion New York-based Ponzi scheme was exposed, the Securities Exchange Commission made comprehensive reforms to better detect fraud, according to the Journal of Accountancy. The Associated Press reported that more than 150 Ponzi schemes collapsed in 2009 alone, according to the AP's examination of criminal cases at all U.S. attorneys' offices and the FBI, as well as criminal and civil actions taken by state prosecutors and regulators at both the federal and state levels.

While enforcement efforts ramped up, there appears to be another reason so many Ponzi schemes have come to light.

"The financial meltdown has resulted in the exposure of numerous fraudulent schemes that otherwise might have gone undetected for a longer period of time," said Lanny Breuer, who was assistant attorney general for the U.S. Justice Department's criminal division in 2009. Ironically, it was Wilson's warnings about financial disaster and the dollar's decline that enticed many investors to seek comfort in silver.

Three years after Madoff's fraud imploded, federal authorities have been cracking down on Ponzi schemes in even greater numbers.

A recent report in The New York Times said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought 32 enforcement cases against suspected Ponzi schemes in its 2011 fiscal year, a 45 percent increase from 2010 and a record high for the agency. In the same period, The Times reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened more than 1,000 inquiries into possible Ponzi schemes — a roughly 150 percent increase from 2008.

He earned trust

Allegations against Wilson are similar to those heard in cases across the nation.

He didn't wear thousand-dollar suits like Madoff, choosing instead to be seen in seersucker and bow ties in the summer and red plaid jackets in the winter. Around Christmas time, whether consciously or not, Wilson resembled Santa Claus with his white beard and festive outfits.

He earned trust, worked hard and had an air of respectability, according to most accounts. He was courted by state politicians and quoted as an expert on the Confederate flag in national newspapers until shortly before state officials made their allegations public.

Wilson joined or founded numerous local conservative organizations and mixed financial advice with his vocal support for conservative causes, his associates from the 1990s recall. He hosted shortwave radio shows with names such as "Hour of Courage" and "Straight Talk," and he ingrained himself with groups whose interests included Southern heritage and farming.

Many people came to trust Wilson as a respected, conservative Anderson County leader.

Outsmarting the establishment

By 1982, Wilson had moved to South Carolina from Tennessee and lived in Piedmont on River Road. He worked for the John Birch Society during that time and was active in local politics.

He participated in a debate that year with college student Dan Cooper about whether Piedmont should be incorporated. Wilson argued against incorporation, Cooper in favor.

"Well, it became a public service district and the highest-taxed area in the state," Cooper said recently. "So I guess I lost that one."

Cooper, who would go on to become a powerful state representative until his resignation in 2011, and Wilson bonded over their interest in Confederate history.

Wilson has been described as a gruff, blunt man. He stuck to his guns and was fierce in defending what he thought was right, Cooper said.

Cooper never invested with Wilson. "I never had any money to invest," he said. Cooper attended a meeting in Greenville in 1992 at which Wilson pitched people on investing in silver.

The pitch changed little in the 20 years between then and Wilson's last meeting in March, before state officials made public their accusations that his business was a fraud.

"He talked about how the value of the dollar was unpredictable, not backed by gold," Cooper said.

Recent investors say they often heard Wilson describe how a $20 gold piece bought a fine suit in the 1860s, just as it would today despite the increase in price of the suit, because of the increase in the value of precious metals.

Wilson often said that investing in precious metals would make investors immune to inflation, that the metals would retain their purchasing power.

"I could see how nowadays it rings a little truer that it did back then," Cooper said.

Wilson's early sales pitch, relayed through magazines such as Citizen Informer, played to those suspicious of government, said Ed Sebesta, who maintains a collection of fringe magazines and remembers how Wilson appealed to subscribers.

"If your sales pitch emphasizes that buying your product or service is somehow outsmarting the establishment, who they are hostile to ... they will buy," Sebesta said. "Your amazing secret is suppressed by the establishment but, if buyers get it, they beat the establishment. That is the sales pitch, basically."

Fringe groups

In the late 1980s and through the early 1990s, Wilson belonged to the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South, two groups from which he would later distance himself.

The Council of Conservative Citizens is an immigration reform group that has been devoted to the interests of European Americans, while the League of the South advocated a Southern state distinct from the United States. Wilson has said that he never attended a meeting of the League of the South but was only a member during the fight over whether to fly the Confederate flag over the state capitol.

Wilson told the Independent Mail in 2006 that he wanted Southerners to be classified as a separate people but that he did not advocate secession.

The Council of Conservative Citizens was formed by supporters of the White Citizen's Councils, the John Birch Society and other extremely conservative groups. Wilson was a columnist for at least four years, from 1989 to 1993, for "Citizen Informer," the primary publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens. He wrote several columns about communism and, in a 1991 column, defended the late Sen. Joe McCarthy.

"He had some really crackpot articles," Sebesta said.

He also operated websites for his precious metals business and for selling books and pamphlets.

He sold books about the deaths of 75 people in Waco, Texas, during a botched federal operation in 1993. He also sold books that spun conspiracy theories involving President Bill Clinton's administration and former Attorney General Janet Reno.

One controversial book was "Barbarians Inside the Gate" by a discredited 1960s Defense Department official. The book is rife with anti-Semitic language and quotes frequently from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which claims to expose a Jewish plot to take over the world.

Wilson promoted the book by saying on his website: "The author reveals concealed codes and goals that might be extracted from the Protocols of Zion. I thought long and hard about handling this book. I will not back away from the truth in this book. You MUST READ THIS BOOK for yourself." (Capital letters were Wilson's).

Commander in chief

The groups for whom Wilson worked in the 1990s opened doors to people who would later advance his political and economic future.

Wilson has a long history with North Carolina attorney Kirk Lyons, who has represented many of the country's racist organizations and individuals, according to the activist group Southern Poverty Law Center.

Wilson's daughter, Allison Schaum, was hired by Lyons as a paralegal for his firm, Southern Legal Resource Center, in 2001. Wilson was listed as a member of the board of directors until his name was removed in March 2012.

Wilson and Lyons solidified their alliance in 2002, a year after his daughter joined Lyons' law firm, in the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Lyons sought control of the organization that he called a group of "gravestone polishers" and sought to make it more politically active.

His bid drew national attention and was thwarted, while Wilson quietly won a top role in the organization, whose members numbered 33,000.

The title of commander-in-chief gave Wilson substantial authority. He and Lyons worked to remove at least 300 people from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, according to numerous accounts from both critics and supporters of the group.

The people who were removed had criticized those who had previously belonged to the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South, according to Walt Hilderman III, who started a group called Save the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Hilderman said that while many supporters of Wilson characterized the old SCV group, the real problem was that Hilderman and others had tried to purge from the SCV those who were segregationists or who advocated secession.

"How can we represent our heritage when we're supporting something so ugly," Hilderman said in a recent interview with the Independent Mail.

The Associated Press and other national news organizations wrote extensively about the purge of moderates from the Sons of Confederate Veterans while Wilson was at the helm.

About 300 of those who were forced out had made public appeals to keep segregationists and racists out of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and most had objected to having a national leader with ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South, Hilderman said.

Wilson took the helm of the national group and its publication, Southern Mercury.

"This is a real screamer of a magazine," Sebesta said.

He said the magazine featured extremist books and merchandise, along with articles penned by Wilson.

Southern Mercury

Wilson's tenure as commander-in-chief ended in 2004, after two years, which is traditional for the organization.

He continued to run the Southern Mercury until the magazine folded, writing in August 2008 that "the magazine has never paid for itself."

Wilson leapt to politics, maintaining his position with the magazine, and running for the 2004 state senate seat now held by Kevin Bryant.

Bryant, attorney Chuck Allen and Wilson were the candidates for the Republican nomination. Wilson described himself as "the hardest core of the bunch." Bryant would go on to win the primary and the general elections.

Six months after defeating him in the primary, Bryant voted to have Wilson appointed to the state Board of Education.

With no college education and a history of disparaging public education in favor of home schooling, Wilson's qualifications for the post appeared to be limited to selling a handful of home-school textbooks on his website.

Wilson was nominated by then-Rep. Dan Cooper, who said at the time that he had not reviewed Wilson's educational credentials but felt that a businessman would contribute to the state's 17-member Board of Education.

Cooper, now a lobbyist, is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans but not very active anymore, he said. He was a founding member of the local Manse Jolly Camp, with a title of lieutenant commander, when Wilson was commander of the camp.

Cooper said Wilson never participated in the camp much.

Other members of the Manse Jolly Camp included Wilson's son-in-law; former Anderson County administrator and adjunct major of the camp Joey Preston; former Anderson County Council member Bill McAbee; and Tim Busha, a former chief deputy. Busha was convicted of breach of trust charges in 2010 and acquitted of securities fraud charges, both stemming from his time with a bail bond company.

Politics

Although Sen. Bryant and Wilson had run against each other, they reconciled before a final political split around 2008, when Wilson attacked Bryant in a mailing that accused the senator of abandoning farmers.

After being appointed to the state education board, Wilson turned his sights on local politics. He was elected to the Anderson County Council in 2006 and served for four years.

His first council election was supported by a group of local conservatives. He pledged to remove County Administrator Joey Preston and call for a forensic audit of the county's finances. During that campaign he also railed against same-sex marriage and brought up the possibility of national economic collapse.

In his 2006 campaign he was supported by Christian Exodus, a group that recognizes "no sovereign but God and no king but Jesus."

In a campaign mailing, the group touted Wilson as "a true patriot, dedicated to Christian liberty and constitutionally limited government, and we can certainly count him as having one of our own on the Anderson County Council."

Within a year and a half of his election, Wilson had become one of Preston's supporters and challenged those who called for an audit, saying that once he had access as a council member he could see that the claims of fraud were overblown.

Wilson cast a key vote in the decision to buy out Preston's contract for $1.14 million in November 2008.

The Preston vote solidified an alliance between Wilson and Democrat Gracie Floyd. Floyd said she had heard stories about Wilson being a racist and associating with racists.

Alone together on the council dais one night, she asked him if he was a racist and he said no, she said. Wilson answered allegations that he was a racist many times by saying he was found guilty by association.

In 2007, Wilson was named to the "40 to Watch List" of hate-group members by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that monitors alleged hate groups and far-right organizations.

"I'm not a racist," Wilson told the Independent Mail in 2007 following the center's watch list release. "I have never been. And there's never been an utterance from me in 59 years to substantiate a charge like that."

At a council meeting during Black History Month one February while Wilson was on council, Floyd said she was astonished to see him with a Kenta cloth sticking out of his breast pocket, paying homage to African-Americans.

"I asked him, 'Do you know what that means?'" Floyd recalled. "He said, 'Yes. I know what it means and I wear it every year during February.'"

Floyd said Wilson told her he was given the cloth by a thankful African-American woman while he was a member of the state education board.

"He was the only ally I had up there," Floyd said of Wilson's time on the county council. "He felt bad about the way they treated me at the time."

Many people who have known Wilson for decades, including Cooper, said they've heard him spout several conspiracy theories but never a racist comment.

"Tough times"

In December 2009, Wilson said from the council dais that his business, buying and selling silver, was busier than ever.

The economy would continue to fall, he said many times at council meetings over the years. "It's going to continue to get worse," he said in October 2009. "I suspect we're raising the first generation of Americans that will not do as well as their parents. I think we're living in tough times. All this bad debt has wiped out the economy."

Wilson left the council having attended fewer than half of the meetings in 2010. During his last regular meeting, he rejected an attempt to hire an auditor who would report to council members rather than the county administration.

"I think the system as it's set works pretty good and so I will not be supporting this," Wilson said. He also challenged the interim county administrator about filling positions during a hiring freeze.

"I know there are people who disagree with me, and it's all right for people to criticize me," he said when he left. "I'm proud of being part of this council and the things we've done."

"He was my friend," Floyd has said since the fraud allegations against Wilson were made public. "He made a mistake — we don't know for sure, but he's accused of making a mistake — but he is still my friend, I hope," Floyd said.

If Wilson is convicted, Floyd said she expects he will handle it like a Southern gentleman, serve his time with class and dignity.

Confederate flag

Wilson's signature political issue has been his support of the Confederate flag. He was quoted often attacking presidential candidates in 2000 and 2008 for their positions on flying the flag.

He was director of the South Carolina Heritage Coalition and treasurer and spokesman of the Palmetto League, two groups devoted in the 1990s to keeping the Confederate flag prominent in South Carolina.

Wilson created Americans for the Preservation of American Culture in the early 2000s, a political action committee also dedicated to keeping the flag flying over the South Carolina capitol.

During the 2008 Republican primary, the group produced radio ads and YouTube videos that attacked both U.S. Sen. John McCain and former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney for failing to support the Confederate flag, while getting behind former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee for supporting Southerners' rights to determine whether to fly the flag.

The group raised $22,900 between 2002 and 2008, according to federal records. Wilson bragged in 2008 to the Washington Times that the ads would reach 60 to 65 percent of Republican primary voters in the state.

Eighty percent of the money, $18,400, came from Ron Wilson, his wife, his two daughters and their husbands and two employees of Atlantic Bullion & Coin. All of them, even one son-in-law listed as having no job and being a student, gave the maximum allowable contribution of $2,300.

There were five others who contributed to the political action committee. On the still-active Americans for the Preservation of American Culture website, people are invited to donate "any contribution up to the amount the intrusive federal government allows."

The unraveling

Wilson sowed seeds of distrust of the government's paper money. It was backed by nothing but the say-so of bureaucrats, he told listeners to his various radio shows and visitors to his websites.

The solution to the pending economic uncertainty, Wilson said, was to buy certificates from his business, which told people they had silver investments kept in a depository. Prosecutors say there was no silver behind those certificates.

The business Wilson started in 1986 after he moved to South Carolina, Atlantic Bullion & Coin, moved into its Easley location around 1996.

The strip mall storefront is owned by Bailey Rice Family Limited Partnership, a company founded by Wilson in 1997. The same company also owns the adjacent Easley storefront where Wilson's daughter started a Live Oaks Farm store to sell goods from the family's Live Oaks Farm in Woodruff, which also belonged to Wilson's Bailey Rice company.

When the silver business moved into the Easley storefront in 1996, Wilson and his business partner, Anthony Cavalcante, signed paperwork agreeing that they would no longer sell precious metals as a security. Cavalcante died in 2011.

The 1996 cease-and-desist letter went unheeded, state prosecutors have alleged. Wilson faces federal charges of fraud and mail fraud for allegedly falsifying customer statements and structuring his business as a Ponzi scheme.

Federal prosecutors have said in court documents that Wilson's business is believed to have become a Ponzi scheme by 2001. State prosecutors, whose case involves the distinction between commodities and securities, list 2009 as a "key year" but do not give an indication of exactly when Wilson's business became illegal.

The beginning of the end was when Wilson went to Columbia on March 1 to testify for a grand jury that is investigating the vote to buy out Preston's contract. While in Columbia, Wilson was pulled aside to speak with a group of investigators from the state securities office.

That meeting led to accusations from the state attorney general and charges from federal officials, each saying Wilson was running a Ponzi scheme through his Atlantic Bullion & Coin business.

State investigators said a tip had come from an out-of-state trust fund manager who noticed that the numbers did not match. It was the first tip about Wilson since 1996, they said.

Many investors had complained privately to Wilson or raised questions, but they were paid off or otherwise satisfied, state attorneys have said.

Wilson was arrested and his wife posted a $1 million bail, using several properties, including the farm.

Federal officials have seized 55 guns belonging to Wilson, along with $79,986 in cash.

Eleven pieces of art, including a large painting of Jefferson Davis and others of Civil War generals from his silver company offices, were noted in seizure documents, along with six vehicles, including Wilson's Land Rover, several pickup trucks and even a refrigerated truck. The list includes $213,008 Wilson had in Southern First Bank.

Eleven properties, from a hundred-acre farm in Woodruff and the two storefronts in Easley to his stone-walled Easley compound, have been noted as possible seizures to satisfy part of what investigators believe to be a $59 million debt he owes to investors.

The Easley compound, built in 2008, is a crown jewel.

It includes a home for one of his daughters and her husband. Behind the large walls, Wilson built a greenhouse, a smokehouse, a carriage house, a garage and a mansion.

Despite Wilson's mantra about avoiding debt, he was behind in payments on his Easley house by the time authorities moved in during March.

The bank has filed a lawsuit seeking property that may yet be seized by a federal receiver who has been appointed to control Wilson's assets.

After fraud allegations were made public in March, Wilson resigned from the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

He is scheduled to appear for a hearing in federal court in Greenville in August on charges of fraud and mail fraud.

On Friday, South Carolina criminal investigators with the Attorney General's Office were asked to look into whether Preston, the former Anderson County administrator, and two others committed crimes as part of their dealings with Wilson. Preston, Wallace Lindsey Howell and Tracy Neily (also known as Tracy Atwell) have been referred to a state grand jury, according to a criminal referral letter dated May 8.