PROVIDENCE - Dozens of people who thought they were making big returns by investing with a day trader and yachtswoman based in Newport instead became the victims of a scheme to embezzle $7.3 million, state police said Thursday.

Elizabeth C. Baldwin, 62, was arraigned earlier this week in District Court in Newport on felony charges of embezzlement, obtaining money under false pretenses and fraudulent use of a computer. She was released on bail and ordered to surrender her passport and not to provide any financial advice or investment services.

Baldwin and her lawyer, Robert Mann, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

Police said Baldwin described herself to investors as a day trader and said she ran a firm called "The Newportant Group." Though she e-mailed monthly statements to clients that showed gains in all but one month, police say her investments lost money.

Police said Baldwin took in $8.7 million from 47 people in Rhode Island, Virginia, Florida, California, Vermont, Georgia, Connecticut and New York and returned $1.4 million to some investors.

The money she didn't lose in investments or pay back to investors was spent on personal items, including a 65-foot yacht, the Van Ki Pass, and trips to Europe and St. Barts. As of Aug. 31, she had just $130,709.19 remaining, police said.

Baldwin also was named in a civil complaint in November by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The federal complaint said that from 2004 to 2007 she fraudulently obtained more than $500,000 to invest in commodities. The complaint is still pending.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York froze Baldwin's assets following the federal complaint.

Baldwin raced the Van Ki Pass in the centennial Newport-Bermuda race in 2006. The yacht won in its division, something investor Glenn McDermott said she used to lure in more people. He said she also used her access to a legitimate Internet chat room for traders to make herself and her business seem trustworthy.

"She gave a certain aura," said McDermott, of Virginia Beach, Va., who with his wife lost at least $1.2 million.

He said he and his wife even traveled to St. Barts, where his wife watched Baldwin do trades.

"At one point she was supposedly making $10,000 a minute," he said. "Everybody got suckered in."