Miami Attorney Must|Cough up $4 Million

MIAMI (CN) – A federal judge ordered Miami attorney Bernard Butts Jr. to pay nearly $4 million in a consent judgment of an SEC case accusing him of orchestrating a prime bank scheme.     The SEC in September 2013 accused Butts of acting as an escrow agent for a bogus international trading program that took $3.5 million from investors.     “However, the program didn’t really exist, and Butts instead doled out investor funds to enrich himself and others,” the SEC said Tuesday.     U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez on July 10 ordered Butts and his companies to disgorge $1.7 million, plus $96,000 in interest, and fined him another $2.1 million.     The SEC said it will return the money to burned investors.