George Levin, a wealthy Fort Lauderdale investor with Wall Street connections, thought Scott Rothstein's confidential legal-settlement deals were a sure thing.

So much so that Levin invested as much as $125 million of his own money, and hundreds of millions more from other investors through his group of Banyon hedge funds.

As the fund's managing partner, Levin personally guaranteed initial investors an 18 percent return upfront to woo them -- and he told them they could expect to make 30 percent or more on the legal-settlement payouts. In his pitch, Levin called it an ``ultra low risk, high yield'' investment strategy.

Levin would become Rothstein's rocket-booster, taking his little-known investment business to dizzying heights -- though no one has accused him of conspiring with the Fort Lauderdale lawyer to dupe investors.

Here's how Rothstein's scheme worked: Investors would make an upfront payment at a discount to a plaintiff in a lawsuit who was expecting a series of ``structured'' settlement payments from the defendant over months or years. The investors would later receive the full settlement amount at a hefty profit.

But it was all a scam. Federal prosecutors said there were no plaintiffs, no defendants, no lawsuits.

SEC PROBE

Now Rothstein, 47, is under federal criminal investigation for running an alleged Ponzi scheme that could exceed $1 billion, and Levin and his Banyon Investment Fund will likely face scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to sources. The SEC is expected to examine whether Levin and Banyon sold unregistered securities or misled investors.

Levin has remained behind the scenes since the Rothstein scandal broke in late October. But a spokesman for his group of Banyon funds has sought to portray him as a ``victim'' who was just as shocked as every other investor who trusted Rothstein.

``Scott Rothstein was a gifted liar who befriended many well-known people in Florida, including Gov. Charlie Crist and Dan Marino,'' said Banyon's spokesman, Jesse Derris. ``He used these people as stage props for his investment scheme. The idea that George provided the sole business credibility to Rothstein is a fallacy.''

But in an April 2009 prospectus for potential investors, Levin took credit for helping ``ramp up'' Rothstein's once small investment business to a $75 million-a-month juggernaut in just two years.

Levin's Banyon funds not only fed Rothstein's voracious appetite for capital but enabled the once-obscure lawyer to live like a tycoon, with more than a dozen homes, 21 cars and an 87-foot yacht. Levin, who was often seen at Rothstein's political and charitable fundraisers, lent the lawyer a respectability among investors that he would have never been able to attain on his own.

By the same token, Levin's financial strategy depended on Rothstein. He warned investors that the fund needed a steady flow of plaintiffs supplied by Rothstein -- plaintiffs that turned out to be illusions.

Now Levin is facing financial peril: In addition to his personal guarantees to other investors, his fund borrowed as much as $200 million at one point to finance investments, records show. And Levin apparently kept rolling his own profits back into the investment, never taking out what he had put in before the whole thing collapsed last month.

Last week, Levin's confidant -- Banyon's Chief Operating Officer Frank J. Prevé -- was named as a defendant in a $100 million lawsuit filed by bilked investors accusing Prevé of conspiring with Rothstein.