Fugitive ex-CEO of investment firm arrested on securities, wire fraud charges

• A ex-investment company CEO who previously appeared on CNBC as a guest analyst was arrested in Washington state on fraud charges after more than two years as a fugitive from a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.
• James Arthur McDonald Jr., is accused of misrepresenting to investors how he would use millions of dollars raised from them in early 2021, and also failed to disclose to those investors "the massive losses" that his Hercules Investments LLC had sustained, Los Angeles federal prosecutors said.
• An FBI agent said McDonald, who had lived in California, falsely claims to a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University, when in actually graduated the Harvard Extension School.

A former investment company CEO who previously appeared as a paid contributor to CNBC was arrested on fraud charges after more than two years as a fugitive from a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, federal prosecutors said.

The defendant, James Arthur McDonald Jr., is accused of misrepresenting to investors how he would use millions of dollars he raised from them between 2019 and 2021, and also hid "massive losses" from investors that his company Hercules Investments LLC had sustained, according to an indictment in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

McDonald's arrest Saturday at a residence in Port Orchard, Washington, came nearly two months after a federal judge found him civilly liable for more than $3.8 million in damages to the SEC for violating securities laws.

The 52-year-old was ordered held without bail Monday by a judge in Tacoma, Washington, federal court, who ruled he was a flight risk.

McDonald agreed to be transferred from Washington to Los Angeles within weeks, to face charges there of one count