The story of wunderkind entrepreneur Ephren W. Taylor II goes like this:

He started a video game company at age 12. He became a millionaire by 16. He became “the youngest African-American CEO of any publicly traded company in U.S. history” at age 23.

He grew up poor, the son of a Christian minister, and wrote a book “Creating Success From The Inside Out,” published by John Wiley & Sons in 2007. He put out press releases. He went on speaking tours. He appeared TV shows, including Montel Williams and ABC’s 20/20, as a brilliant, young entrepreneur. He offered himself up as a role model for children wherever he went.

In May 2007, for instance, he spoke to students at South Hill Academy in Battle Creek, Mich., according to a report in the Battle Creek Enquirer.

“So what is your plan to actually make some money?” he said, as quoted in the newspaper. “Are you gonna get gangsta, go out and rob somebody, rob a bank, take a couple cars, make a little bit of money? Are you gonna stand on a corner and sling a little bit, make what I call outfit money? Just a little bit of bling to buy a coupla outfits. Or are you thinking about a bigger level?”

Here’s the level Taylor has hit at age 29: The Securities and Exchange

Commission filed civil charges last week, alleging Taylor targeted church congregations in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Internet screeds — including a report in the Huffington Post — are calling him “the Black Bernie Madoff.”

“His current whereabouts are unknown,” the SEC said in its complaint. But his attorney, Christopher Bruno of Bruno & Degenhardt in Fairfax, Va., said his client was surprised by the SEC’s complaint, but will respond to it. “He looks forward to telling his side of the story,” Bruno said.

“Ephren Taylor professed to be in the business of socially-conscious investing,” said David Woodcock, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth, Texas, regional office, in a news release. “Instead, he was in the business of promoting Ephren Taylor.”

The SEC alleges, Taylor, who was CEO of City Capital Corp., “secretly diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars to publishing and promoting his books, hiring consultants to refine his public image, and funding his wife’s singing career.”

Taylor somehow overcame the incongruity of asking church goers to invest in gambling devices, or what he called “sweepstakes machines.” He also told investors their money, often from self-directed retirement accounts — would be invested in everything from laundry mats, and child care centers to Quiznos franchises. “Christians helping Christians,” is how one of his fliers billed it.

Among the many places he targeted investors was the 25,000-member Atlanta megachurch, New Birth Missionary Baptist, headed by controversial televangelist Bishop Eddie Long.

Long, who has been in the national news after four men sued him alleging sexual abuse, reportedly compared Taylor to Moses.

An associate of Taylor’s described him as a good guy who simply made bad decisions when the economy turned against him. But Cathy Lerman, a Coral Springs, Fla., attorney who represents victims in a class action lawsuit filed against Taylor, told me she thinks his story was rotten from the start. The startup he launched at age 12 “mysteriously dissolved in 2001,” her lawsuit claims.

Lerman, whose lawsuit is what likely aroused the SEC and other investigating law enforcement authorities, estimates more than 500 people lost between $30 million and $50 million to Taylor’s pulpit pitches. “He used their goodness and their faith against them,” she said.

During his relentless speaking tours, Taylor peddled his story to the media, and it was repeated, uncritically, time and again. He appeared on “The Big Idea” show, hosted by Donny Deutsch, on MSNBC. He even addressed a youth leader’s summit at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

No one seems to have asked how a guy this young could have so many monumental accomplishments on his resume. They just went with his sound bites.

Here’s a great quote Taylor gave The Jacksonville Florida Times-Union in October 2009: “There’s a saying, ‘Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.’ … What about teaching people to own the pond instead?”

During the halcyon days of Taylor’s well-crafted media legend, even my former colleague from The Denver Post, Will Shanley, profiled Taylor in a piece that began with Taylor as “a ‘playground hustler’ growing up in Kansas City, Kan.”

“He was very charismatic,” Shanley recalled. “A great speaker and seemed like he had a huge heart. … He was talking a lot about redeveloping dilapidated neighborhoods in his hometown and nationwide. It’s sad to hear he was allegedly running … a Ponzi scheme.”

Kauisha Smith, 31 years old, of Houston told me she invested $40,000 with Taylor on the advice of a trusted friend. She said she saw him present at Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Houston. “He was saying ‘God wants you to prosper’,” she recalls. “He was on all these TV shows, so I figured this guy must be legit,” she said.

“Now, I’ve been watching this show on CNBC called ‘American Greed.’ I’m sure he’ll get on there, because he’s taken from a lot of people.”

Al Lewis: 212-416-2617 or al.lewis@dowjones.com; read his blog at tellittoal.com.