At around 4:30 this afternoon, twelve people forever branded Earle Morris a criminal.

They convicted him on all 22 counts of securities fraud, meaning they believe he lied to investors before the collapse of the Pickens firm and its parent company, HomeGold.

It cost 8,000 people about $275 million.

Attorney General Henry McMaster insists he did not target Morris when the investigation began.

"We had no preconceived notion of where it would end-up," he told reporters. "But we simply, with the investigators and SLED agents and prosecutors and accountants and others, we simply followed the evidence where it led."

McMaster said he wasn't happy that Judge James Johnson let Morris go home tonight.

Johnson won't sentence Morris until 10 a.m. tomorrow. He could get 200 years in prison.

After the verdict was read, investor Berry Nicholson told News Channel 7 that "it's a sad day."

Nicholson says the jurors just confirmed what he and the other investors believed as soon as the doors closed in March 2003.

At one point during the trial, Morris testified that he felt he only owed the truth to his employer, HomeGold.

Jurors apparently disagreed.