A former Los Angeles film producer who held key roles in several independent projects, including the Oscar-nominated young Donald Trump movie The Apprentice , has been arrested in South Carolina after a grand jury indicted him on charges of defrauding victims out of more than $12 million in schemes that included a Ponzi scheme, phony COVID-19 testing and misappropriating production funds.

David Raymond Brown, 39, has been charged with nine counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of transactional money laundering and two counts of aggravated identity theft in an indictment filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Brown had an initial court appearance in South Carolina on Wednesday following his arrest and is expected to be arraigned when he is returned

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