COLUMBIA, S.C. - The former president of Carolina Investors was released on bail Friday after he was indicted on 23 counts of security fraud.

Larry C. Owen, 60, of Easley was indicted Thursday by the state grand jury investigating the collapse of the Pickens company. At an arraignment Friday morning, Circuit Judge G. Thomas Cooper set Owen's bond at $100,000 and bail was quickly posted.

The indictments are the first in an investigation that began in June, state Attorney General Henry McMaster said. "These kinds of investigations take time, and this one is not over," he said.

Carolina Investors and its parent company HomeGold filed for bankruptcy protection last spring, saying they owed creditors an estimated $275 million.

About 8,000 people had deposits in Carolina Investors, which closed in March.

McMaster would not say Friday whether others face charges in the case. In the end, McMaster said, he hopes the case raises consumer confidence and deters others from committing securities crimes.

The indictments are the first since the Legislature gave the state grand jury the authority to examine investment acts earlier this year.

"I personally can't make any comments because I don't really know anything about the indictments," Owen said Thursday. On Friday, Owen told the judge he is not guilty and asked for a jury trial.

Owen's lawyer Bill Bannister Sr. of Greenville asked the judge to let Owen go free until trial without putting up any money. Bannister said his client is not a flight risk and that Owen cooperated with State Law Enforcement Division agents in their investigation.

Prosecutor Sherri Lydon disagreed..

Normally the ties to the community would be strong, "but due to widespread nature of the alleged fraud ... there is actually much hostility in the community toward him," Lydon told Cooper. "I don't think his incentive to stay there is as strong as it normally might be."

Bannister emphasized that Owen showed no evidence he'd bolt. When Carolina Investors shut its doors, Owen stayed to face investors, the defense lawyer said.

"He's had death threats on his life from people in that community," Bannister said. "If he had had any intention of fleeing ... he would have ducked out and cut and run and been gone."

Owen "was just an employee of the company" and "lost money as well," Bannister said after the hearing. Apart from his paycheck, "he never gained any profit."

Owen was president of Carolina Investors from 1989 until this year and for most of that time was the company's chief executive officer.

The indictment alleges Owen used false statements and omitted facts about the troubled company to induce investments or prevent a "run on the money." According to the indictment, Owen asked employees to notify him when any investor wanted to withdraw money, so he could persuade them not to take it out.

"I'm just caught up in this. ... I was going to use the interest off of this" to live a meager lifestyle, said 76-year-old investor Roselle Anderson of Pickens.

Anderson told Cooper she had lost her family inheritance and the money she had saved for retirement. "I'm going to have to go back to work," she told the judge.

In 1995, according to the indictment, Carolina Investors' parent company began a series of inter-company loans, borrowing $15 million. Carolina Investors stopped external lending activities and focused on selling debt securities to fund its parent company's operations, according to the indictment.

Three years, later, HomeGold "suffered substantial operating losses," according to the indictment. It began to buy back bonds it sold in a $125 million offering, repurchasing the bonds at 37 percent to 60 percent of their face value "reflecting concern in the bond market that HomeGold's financial condition would prevent it from paying the bonds when due," according to the indictment.

Carolina Investors continued selling securities at 100 percent of the face value, according to the indictment.

HomeGold continued to lose money, even after merging with another firm, according to the indictment.

The company's accounting firm, Elliott Davis, explained "auditors had substantial doubt as to whether Carolina Investors would be able to stay in business as a growing concern," according to the indictment.

Owen, the indictment alleges, misled investors about the company's financial condition and resisted the auditor's concerns, fearful that "the negative information, which was included in the prospectus, might dissuade potential investors from investing or influence existing investors to withdraw their investments."

Owen faces a maximum penalty of 216 years in prison and more than $1.1 million in fines if he is convicted. However, there is no mandatory minimum, so even if convicted Owen might not be sentenced to any time behind bars.