Ex-Woodbridge Group of Companies CEO and owner Robert Shapiro and former Woodbridge directors Ivan Acevedo and Dane R. Roseman are now facing criminal charges over their alleged involvement in operating a $1.2B Ponzi scam that went on from ’12 to ’17. All three men were arrested and appeared in federal…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed fraud charges against two men claiming to be pastors of a church at a strip mall in Orange County, California. Kent R.E. Whitney and David Lee Parrish are accused of targeting members of their local Vietnamese community and defrauding investors of…
Dennis Gibb, an investment adviser and the owner/president of Sweetwater Investments Inc., has pleaded guilty to falsification of records and wire fraud. Gibb has also settled parallel civil charges brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in which part of that deal involves the liquidation of his Sweetwater…
Carol Ann Pederson, an unregistered investment advisor and an ex-CPA, is facing charges accusing her of defrauding more than two dozen investors. The US Securities and Exchange Commission claims that Pederson: Raised at least $29M from investors. Made false promises that their money would go into “federally guaranteed securities.” Touted…
79 investment advisors have settled charges brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accusing them of not properly disclosing conflicts of interests involving the sale of costlier mutual fund share classes that caused them to earn more fees. The regulator’s action is related to its Share Class Section…
William Neil Gallagher, a Dallas area-based radio host based who calls himself the “Money Doctor,” is now facing securities fraud charges accusing him and his companies, Gallagher Financial Group and W. Neil Gallagher, PhD Agency, Inc., of seeking to defraud older investors of their retirement money in a $19.6M Texas-based…
According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Wedbush Securities has settled allegations accusing the brokerage firm of failing to supervise one of its former registered representatives, Timary Delorme, who is accused of engaging in a pump-and-dump fraud that harmed retail investors. As part of the settlement, Wedbush consented…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has secured a final judgment against ex-Alexander Capital broker William Gennity, who is accused of excessive churning in clients’ brokerage accounts. Gennity, whom the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had earlier suspended, will pay nearly $128K in disgorgement, nearly $15K in prejudgment interest,…
Just a few weeks after former Wells Fargo (WFC) broker John Gregory Schmidt consented to a final judgment in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) investor fraud case against him, the regulator announced that it has barred Schmidt for misappropriating more than $1.3M from clients, most of them elderly…
Brokerage firm and investment adviser BB&T Securities has agreed to give back over $5M to retail investors, as well as pay the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a $500K penalty, to resolve charges that Valley Forge Asset Management misled advisory clients into thinking they were getting complete “full-service brokerage…