By Nate Raymond

Dec 15 (Reuters) - Florida lender BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc and its chief executive defrauded investors in 2007, early in the U.S. financial crisis, a federal jury found on Monday.

BBX Capital Corp, as BankAtlantic is known today, and Alan Levan, who remains as CEO, were found liable by a federal jury in Miami following a six-week trial in a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The verdict, while clearing the company and Levan on some claims, resulted in BBX Capital shares closing down 7.26 percent at $15.34 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Andrew Ceresney, the SEC's director of enforcement, said the agency was pleased with the verdict. A lawyer for BBX and Levan said they planned to appeal.

The case, filed in 2012, arose from BankAtlantic loans made on large tracts of land intended for the development of single-family homes and condominiums. Florida was among the U.S. states hardest hit by the nation's housing crisis.

The SEC contended BankAtlantic and Levan made misleading statements to investors to hide the deteriorating state of its real estate portfolio in 2007.

The SEC also contended the company and Levan committed accounting fraud by scheming to minimize BankAtlantic's losses.

Following the trial, a jury found that Levan's statements during BankAtlantic's 2007 second quarter earnings conference call misled investors about the bank's financial health.

The jury also found that BankAtlantic's 2007 annual report fraudulently understated its losses for that year by $53 million. It also found that Levan and the company engaged in a business that "operated as a fraud" in 2007, the SEC said.

Eugene Stearns, the lawyer for BBX and Levan, said he expected to appeal, particularly a ruling by the judge instructing jurors to find statements on the 2007 second quarter conference call were objectively false.

"I believe the instruction on falsity to be unprecedented in the history of securities litigation," he said.

The SEC is seeking financial penalties from the defendants and to ban Levan from serving as an officer or director of a public company.

BankAtlantic assets were sold to BB&T Corp in 2012, and the holding company renamed itself BBX Capital.

The case is SEC v. BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 12-60082.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)