Crime & Safety

Convicted Fugitive Financier Caught

The Marshals Service finds Rufus Paul Harris in Utah.

U.S. marshals have caught fugitive financier Rufus Paul Harris at a home in Provo, UT, after a national manhunt that lasted five days.

A Marshals Service task force arrested Harris without incident in Utah, Deputy Marshal Jim Joyner said. The booking information from the Washington County Sheriff's Office shows that the arrest came just after 10 p.m. Utah time, minutes after the start of Sunday in Kennesaw.

William Kehl is credited as the arresting officer.

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Harris, 43, formerly of Adairsville, is the co-founder and former CEO of Kennesaw-based Conversion Solutions Holdings Corp. He was convicted in U.S. District Court late last week of eight counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and false certification of a financial statement and could be sent to prison for effectively the rest of his life and be fined nearly $3 million when he’s sentenced Aug. 18.

Also being sentenced that day will be Conversion Solutions Holdings’ co-founder and former chief operating officer, Benjamin Stanley, 48, of Kennesaw, who was convicted of securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy, and the former chief financial officer, Darryl Horton, 50, of Okemos, MI, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy while the jury was deliberating.

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Harris also faces possible bail-jumping charges after he fled a motel Monday evening during the two-week trial and never returned to court.

“I am happy to announce that this defendant was arrested without incident less than a week after he fled,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement today. “The defendant was able to travel nearly 2,000 miles, but that was not far enough for the talented and hard working deputies of the United States Marshals Service and the other federal and local law enforcement agencies that assisted.”

Joyner said prompt notice that Harris fled helped the interstate investigation, coordinated by Lead Deputy Lorena McCaigue. Marshals Service offices in Oklahoma, where Harris most recently lived, and Utah worked with the Atlanta office to follow Harris’ trail. 

Yates said Harris “will now find that his problems have gone from bad to worse.”


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