Ponzi Scams

Former Lombard Securities Broker Pleads Guilty in Multimillion-Dollar Ponzi Scam That Defrauded Older Investors

Published on: December 11, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Steven Pagartanis, an ex-New York broker with Lombard Securities, has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and mail fraud in a Ponzi scam that went on for more than 18 years and caused investors to lose more than $9M of the over $13M that they invested. Many of his victims were older investors who lost a significant amount of their life savings. Many of them had worked with Pagartanis for years.

According to the release by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, from 1/2000 to 3/2018, Pagartanis persuaded older individuals to get involved in investments involving real estate, including those that had affiliations with an international hotel conglomerate and publicly traded entities. Investors were told that their principal was secure and they would make a fixed return of 4.5 to 8% yearly.

Pagartanis’ victims were instructed to write checks to an entity of which he was secretly in control. The former broker used different bank accounts to launder the stolen money that he then spent on his own expenses as well as to pay other investors their “interest or dividend payments” that they were owed. He set up bogus account statements so as to encourage further investing and to hide his fraud.

FINRA Bars Broker For Selling $10.8M of Notes in $1.2B Woodbridge Ponzi Scam

Published on: December 6, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has barred yet another ex-broker for selling promissory notes that have since been linked to the $1.2B Woodbridge Ponzi scam. The fraud is believed to have bilked around 8,400 investors.

According to the self-regulatory authority (SRO), broker Frank Dietrich sold 58 investors $10M of promissory notes that came from the Woodbridge Group of Companies. 30 of these investors were clients of Quest Capital Strategies, Inc., which was Dietrich’s brokerage firm at the time of the sales. FINRA said that the former Quest Capital broker earned $261K in commissions from selling the Woodbridge investments.

Quest Capital Strategies reportedly did not know that Dietrich was selling the Woodbridge notes to its customers. Earlier this year, the brokerage firm allowed him to step down after finding that he had sold a product it had not approved and for failing to disclose external business activities.

Investor Fraud: Investment Adviser Pleads Guilty to Retirement Fund Fraud, Stock Research Firm is Sued in Alleged Pump-and-Dump Scam That Targeted Seniors, and A Rabbi is Accused of Running a $35M Ponzi Scam

Published on: November 23, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Investment Adviser Accused of Lying to Retirement Fund Clients Pleads Guilty

Richard G. Cody, an investment adviser who ran Boston Investment Partners and is accused of lying to clients about how he handled their retirement funds, has revised his not guilty plea. Cody is now pleading guilty to both making a false declaration under oath and investment adviser fraud.

According to The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, Cody allegedly lied to at least three investors who had relied on him to manage their retirement savings. The investment adviser is accused of fabricating documents so it would look as if their funds were still in the accounts even though hundreds of thousands of dollars had disappeared.

GPB Capital Holdings’ Auditor Resigns Within Months of Private Placement Sales Suspension

Published on: November 19, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Already under scrutiny for suspending its sale of private placements, along with redemptions to investors, GPB Capital Holdings now has to explain why its accountant, Crowe LLP, has resigned as the alternative asset management firm’s auditor. GPB Capital had announced a few months ago that it was undergoing an accounting overhaul and that this was why it had failed to submit financial statements for its two biggest funds – the GPB Holdings II and the GPB Automotive Portfolio – to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this year. These private placements primarily invest in waste management businesses and car dealerships.

According to GPB Capital CEO David Gentile, Crowe has resigned because of “perceived risks” that the accounting firm felt were outside its “internal risk tolerance parameters.” GPB Capital has since retained EisnerAmper, LLP as its replacement auditor.

Such a significant change at such an important time period should raise significant concerns to those who have invested in GPB Capital Holdings private placement deals. GPB Capital Holdings has at least nine different funds including the two mentioned above (GPB Automotive Portfolio and GPB Holdings II) as well as GPB Holdings III, GPB Cold Storage, GPB NY Development and GPB Waste Management.

Investment Advisor Fraud: Dawn Bennett is Convicted in $20M Ponzi Scam, Guilty Plea Reached in $6.1M Fraud, and Genesis Advisory Services Operator Settles SEC Charges

Published on: October 18, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Former Financial Adviser Now Facing Years in Prison for $20M Investor Fraud

Dawn Bennett, an ex-financial adviser and the operator of Bennett Financial Group Services, has been convicted of 17 criminal charges, including securities fraud, conspiracy, bank fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements on a loan application. It took a federal jury less than five hours to convict her for a $20M ponzi scam that defrauded nearly four dozen investors, including many older investors and retirees. Some of her advisory clients took money out of their retirement accounts to invest with Bennett.

Prosecutors contend that the former financial adviser, who is also an ex-radio show host, used investors’ money to pay back earlier investors in Ponzi-like fashion and to fund her luxury lifestyle. This purportedly included paying priests in India to conduct religious ceremonies to keep regulators away, a $500K luxury suite at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium, and cosmetic surgery procedures.

Wayde McKelvy, Accused of Defrauding Retirees and Widows in $54M Ponzi Scam, is Now on Trial

Published on: October 8, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Wayde McKelvy, who is accused of playing a key role in a $54M Ponzi scam that targeted unsophisticated investors, is on trial before a federal jury. According to the US government, McKelvy, who is a former co-owner of Mantria Corp., and two others allegedly sold fake investments in green energy and land to investors, including retirees and widows, and then used the funds to support their luxury lifestyles.

Investors were promised up to 50% returns on a supposed new charcoal substitute comprised of organic waste, as well as on real estate in Tennessee. The land, however, was never developed.

Meantime, investors were told that the Tennessee land was valued at over $100M. Through Mantria Financial, the alleged co-conspirators assisted investors in purchasing investments in both the land deals and the charcoal substitute, known as “biochar.”

Investor Fraud: Barred Michigan Investment Adviser is Accused of Defrauding Retirees of $2.7M and SEC Halts Alleged $345M Ponzi Scam That Bilked Seniors, Retail Investors, and Small Business Owners

Published on: September 20, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Former Michigan Financial Adviser Faces SEC Charges in $2.7M Investment Scam that Defrauded Seniors

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against Ernest J. Romer III, a former Michigan-based financial adviser with 47 disclosures on his Broker-Check record and who was barred by FINRA last year. Romer also pleaded no contest to embezzlement in July and is awaiting his sentence. According to the regulator, between 2014 and 2016, the ex-financial adviser defrauded unsophisticated investors and older retirees of $2.7M.

The regulator contends that Romer convinced at least 30 clients to “sell securities in their brokerage accounts” and transfer their proceeds to the companies CoreCap Solutions or P & R Capital. He purportedly gave them the impression that these were affiliated brokerage firms when, in fact, they were businesses that Romer owned. Many of these investors entrusted him with their life savings.

Investors Bilked in $1.2B Woodbridge Ponzi Scam Must Pay 16% to Borrow on What They Are Owed

Published on: September 5, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

It wasn’t bad enough that over 10,000 investors, many of them retirees and other retail investors, were bilked in the $1.2B Woodbridge Ponzi scam. Now, they are allowed to borrow against what they hope to recover after the bankrupt real estate developer’s assets are liquidated but they must pay a 16% interest rate to do so.

While the rate isn’t necessarily wrong or unfair on the part of hedge fund lender Axar Capital Management—it was the investors that went to the Delaware Bankruptcy court seeking a $215M loan facility so that they could access their funds until Woodbridge’s bankruptcy proceedings are settled—the rate is still a steep sum considering that they thought that their investments would garner an approximately 8% return.

SEC Goes After Woodbridge

Investors in UDF IV REIT Want Texas Federal Judge to Approve $13.5M Ponzi Fraud Settlement

Published on: August 29, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Investors who placed their funds in the Texas-based United Development Funding IV real estate investment trust are asking a federal judge to approve a $13.5M REIT fraud settlement they’d reached with the company over the allegations that it had been run like a Ponzi-like scam and concealed this. The plaintiffs contend that UDV IV and its affiliates not only made false statements but also they did not disclose material facts involving business and operations.

They brought their REIT fraud case against the UDF companies three years ago, accusing the defendants of using investors’ funds from newer offering to pay investors who had gotten involved in earlier offerings. The investors, who want class certification, alleged that disclosures they were offered were misleading and lending practices lacked transparency.

Both sides eventually arrived at the $13.5M settlement—$10.5M in cash and another $3M once the REIT hits its $75M cash flow target in two years. This deal is separate from a settlement the plaintiffs reached with UDF accountants, as well as those that underwrote and sold the allegedly fraudulent offerings.

Unregistered Brokers Are Charged With Selling More Than $243M of Woodbridge Securities to Over 1600 Investors

Published on: August 24, 2018 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Top10-3 Five unregistered brokers and their companies are now facing US Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing them of selling Woodbridge securities to investors even though they were not registered as broker-dealers and therefore were not allowed to sell these securities. The defendants allegedly made millions of dollars from the Woodbridge securities sales.

The unregistered brokers and their companies are Barry and Ferne Kornfeld and Fek Enterprises, Andrew G. Costa and Costa Financial Insurance Services Corp., Albert D. Klager and Atlantic Insurance & Financial Services Inc., and Lynette M. Robbins and Knowles Systems, Inc. They allegedly sold over $243M of Woodbridge unregistered securities to over 1600 retail investors.

According to the regulator’s complaints, the unregistered brokers and the companies marketed Woodbridge Group of Companies, LLC as an investment that was “safe and secure.” Woodbridge, however, declared bankruptcy last December. The moment Woodbridge filed for bankruptcy protection, investors stopped receiving the interest they were due each month and they still haven’t received a return on their principal.