The former chief financial officer of Lexington-based HomeGold Financial Inc. was released from prison this week after serving time for conspiring to mislead regulators and investors about the financial health of the company and its investment subsidiary, Carolina Investors Inc.
Karen Miller, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, was sentenced last year to 30 months in prison. A Department of Corrections spokesman said Miller, 57, was released after serving 15 months based on credit for working in prison as a chaplain assistant and a custodian helper.
Neither Miller nor her attorney could be reached for comment.
Miller had been in the Goodman Correctional Institution in Columbia, according to the spokesman.
About 12,000 people, many elderly and retired, and most from the Upstate, lost an estimated $278 million when Pickens-based Carolina Investors, a HomeGold subsidiary, suddenly closed its doors in 2003.
Miller, a native of Cheverly, Md., in September 2005 pleaded guilty to conspiracy in filing misleading reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission and withholding key information from Carolina Investors board members.
She had faced up to five years in prison.
At her sentencing hearing, Miller's attorney pleaded for leniency. He said she attempted to account for her wrongdoing by cooperating with investigators, testifying against other executives and helping a bankruptcy trustee identify assets that could be used to recover 18 cents for each dollar investors lost.
Prosecutors praised Miller's cooperation.
In all, six former HomeGold or Carolina Investors officers, including former Lt. Gov. Earle Morris Jr., who was Carolina Investors' chairman, were convicted of various crimes and sentenced to prison.
Morris was released from prison in March because he's terminally ill with prostate cancer. He had served more than half of his 44-month sentence when released. He is in a Lexington assisted-living center, his attorney Joel Collins said Thursday.
Other implicated executives included Greenville businessman Jack Sterling, who was HomeGold's chairman. He was sentenced to five years in prison after a jury found him guilty on one count of securities fraud. Sterling has appealed and remains free on bond.
McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.
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