Texas Securities Fraud

Independent Brokerage Firms that Sold UDF REITs May Be Subject to Arbitration Claims Over Alleged Ponzi Scam

Published on: February 25, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to InvestmentNews, a number of independent broker-dealers could find themselves in legal hot waters, should investors decide to pursue them through arbitration for selling UDF real estate investment trusts. United Development Funding is under investigation over allegations that the UDF IV was run for years like a Ponzi scam. UDF IV was initially a nontraded real estate investment trust that later became listed as a publicly traded REIT.

The article goes on to name four firms that sold the UDF REITs or private deals to investors: Financial Services Inc., Berthel Fisher & Co., VSR Financial Services Inc., and Centaurus Financial Inc. Other firms also have sold UDF REITs to investors.

The allegations against UDF first surfaced in December in an anonymous post published on Harvest Exchange, an investor website. Among the accusations: that the UDF umbrella demonstrated traits “emblematic” of a Ponzi scam; new capital was used pay existing investors; and newer UDF companies were giving liquidity to earlier UDF companies to pay earlier investors. Noting that a hedge fund had created a short position in UDF IV shares, the company accused the fund of trying to illegally profit by depressing and manipulating UDV IV’s share price.

Recently, J. Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital also published a website about the allegations. On the site, Bass acknowledged that Hayman maintains a short position in UDV IV common stock.
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The FBI Raids UDF IV Offices in Dallas, Texas

Published on: February 19, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has raided the Dallas offices of United Development Funding. The publicly traded real estate investment trust recently came under fire amid allegations that it has been run like a Ponzi scam for years.

Since the accusations against UDF IV were published on the Harvest Fund website, the REIT’s stock has dropped 81% in the last two months. News that the FBI went to the UDF headquarters caused the company’s share price to plunge nearly 55% during the raid on Thursday to close at $3.20/share.

UDF IV has denied the allegations that it is a Ponzi scam. Following news of the accusations, It filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that it was the victim of a “short and distort” securities trading scam involving an investor that was building up a short position in a stock. The aim , said UDV, was to illegally manipulate shares. In December, UDF revealed that it has been under investigation in a fact-finding probe by the SEC since 2014.

This month, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass said that he is the one who has been shorting UDF. He accused the nontraded REIT of using new investor funds to pay existing investors and exploiting “Mom and Pop” retail investors. Bass’s Hayman Capital Management LP has been betting against UDF IV shares. He was the one who made the Ponzi scam claims against UDF at the end of last year.
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Texas Hedge Fund Manager Accuses United Development Funding IV of Ponzi Scam

Published on: February 8, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

J. Kyle Bass, the hedge fund manager who runs the Dallas-based Hayman Capital, has set up a website accusing Texas-based REIT United Development Funding IV of running a Ponzi-like real estate scam. On the site, Bass published a letter to readers, claiming that his firm had conducted research and found that the nontraded real estate investment trust displayed characteristics in line with a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Bass contends that UDF used money from a public affiliate to rescue its first fund. According to Business Insider, Bass also claims that UDF management has been distorting its poor track record and the financial state of its affiliates going as far back as the financial crisis. He alleges that UDF has been taking advantage of retail investors and using UDF- controlled entities and real estate backed loans to conceal the fact that new investors money is b used to pay existing investors.
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Texas Securities Commissioner Orders Firm To Stop Selling Pension Streams

Published on: February 1, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

John Morgan, the Texas securities commissioner, is ordering SoBell Corp. and its owner Andrew Gamber to stop selling its Pension Income Stream Program in the state of Texas. SoBell, which is based in Mississippi, executes agreements with pension benefits recipients to sell their income stream to investors for $35K to over $1K, while offering 7-8% in yearly returns.

Morgan says that the company and Gamber committed fraud by selling unregistered securities and making statements to investors that were “misleading and deceiving.” SoBell also is accused of executing agreements with pension benefit recipients that gave the company authority to sell pension-sourced income to investors.

As for Gamber, he allegedly did not disclose that he had been subject to sanctions in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, New Mexico, and California. The four states had issued cease and desist orders against Voyager Financial Group, LLC, Gamber, and people who sold the unregistered securities. They also are accused of misleading investors about the risks involved in certain investment products, including default rates involving pension income stream sales made by companies that Gamber controlled, and they purportedly did not disclose that making pension payment assignments is against federal law.

Disabled persons, veterans, military members, and federal government employees are among those that typically get involved in pension-sourced income. The Texas Securities Board says that often these investors are solicited while they are under “financial distress.”
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SEC Wants Lawyer to Pay $2.5M Penalty in Texas Securities Case

Published on: January 23, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a motion for summary judgment in its case against Gregory Jones. The Texas lawyer is facing civil charges accusing him of defrauding investors in two securities offerings, including a fracking water filtration deal and an oil and gas exploration venture.

Now, the SEC wants Jones to pay a $2.5M civil penalty, disgorgement of $985K, further disgorgement of $480K, and $17K in prejudgment interest.

The regulator, in its original complaint that it submitted last year, claims that Jones represented Swiss and French investors who invested about $6M in Edwards Exploration. The attorney had a deal with the company in which he would get paid for providing due diligence related to the investors’ shares. The fees he received under the agreement were about $480K. However, claims the Commission, Jones did not tell investors that the money came from their principal cash.

The SEC also says that from ’13 through at least ’14, Jones sold and offered securities that were put out by Aquaphex, which was supposedly a business that was involved in recycling fracking water. He raised about $64K from nine investors. However, contends the Commission, the investment documents for the company included false statements, including a claim that investors could end up making over 115% a year on the securities the they bought.
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Investors Files Texas Securities Case Alleging Violations by United Development Funding IV

Published on: January 22, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Investors have filed a class action securities case claiming that the Texas nontraded real estate investment trust United Development Funding IV (NASDAQ:UDF) and certain of its officers violated federal securities laws. The complaint come a month after the Harvest Exchange website published a report accusing the Company of running a Ponzi-like scam. The UDF umbrella is accused of raising capital to bail out its earlier vintage entities.

On December 10, 2015, the day that the report went out, UDF’s shares dropped significantly. The Company then put out a press release disclosing that its UDF IV and UDF III have been cooperating for nearly two years with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been conducting a non-public probe since early 2014. Following that announcement, Company shares fell even further, negatively impacting investors.

The Texas securities case accuses the defendants of, from June 4 – December 10, 2015, failing to disclose that:

· New UDF companies gave older UDF companies substantial liquidity, letting them pay earlier investors.
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FINRA Files Securities Case Against Texas Firm Over Churning Allegations

Published on: January 14, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority claims that Caldwell International Securities Corp. engaged in the churning of customer accounts and that this purportedly resulted in $1 million in excess commissions for the firm. The self-regulatory organization says that the alleged violations began in 2011.

According to FINRA, the Texas-based company’s founder Greg Caldwell and supervisors Lennie Freiman and Paul Jacobs decided to ignore that four OSJs (offices of supervisory jurisdiction), three in New York and one in New Jersey, were churning customer accounts and making yearly commission revenues of at least 100% of the customers’ equity.

The regulator said that brokers at the OSJs contacted foreign investors to persuade them to take part in speculative stock and option trading. Even after 15 customers lost $1.1M and paid over $1M in commissions and fees, Caldwell and its supervisors purportedly still did not take any action.

Cost-to-equity ratios in customer accounts are believed to have varied from 18% to over 100%. The firm is also accused of not reporting that it had been the subject over three dozen customer complaints.
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Man Pleads Guilty to $5.4M Texas Investment Fraud

Published on: November 23, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Robert B. Hahn has pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in a $5.4M Texas financial fraud that bilked about 100 investors. He faces up to 20 years behind bars.

According to information presented before the judge, from 1/07 to 2/15, Hahn, who was an insurance agent, claimed to represent doctors in Tyler, Texas that were supposedly raising funds for the construction and renovation of health care facilities, debt retirement, and the purchase of medical equipment. Investors were told that the doctors would pay a 20% yearly interest rate on investments and loans.

Instead, Hahn took investors’ money and deposited them into his personal accounts or his insurance business. He would make cash “interest” payments to investors. This money was supposed to be a 20% return on the fake investments or loans when, in truth, the funds were, in Ponzi scam-like fashion, coming from the money given to him by other investors.
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Southwest Securities Found Liable for $5.45M in Texas Investment Fraud

Published on: November 16, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A Dallas jury says that Southwest Securities Inc., which is a broker-dealer owned by PlainsCapital subsidiary Hilltop Holdings, and broker Leighton Stallones are liable for statutory fraud, fraud, and conspiracy and violation of securities laws related to a 2007 real estate scam. Now, the firm must pay two investors, SSST Riviera Investments Ltd. and Gerritsen Beach Investments Ltd., more than $5.45M in the Texas securities case-$2.9M and $2.55M, respectively.

According to the two entities, Stallones assisted developer Stephen Jemal in concealing the scheme by lying about how his brokerage accounts were doing. Jemal is accused of modifying account records to make it seem as if he had millions of dollars when some of his accounts held under $1,000.
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Broker Fraud News: Ex-Dallas Broker Faces Prison, Fintegra Files for Bankruptcy, and Broker Who Promised Investors They’d Double Their Money Can No Longer Sell Securities

Published on: September 26, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Ex-Dallas Broker Accused of Texas Securities Fraud Face Five Years
Wade Lawrence, a former Dallas broker, has pleaded guilty to Texas securities fraud. As part of his plea bargain the 43-year-old will have to forfeit $1.5 million and pay over $250,000 in fines. He also faces up to five years behind bars for his $2.1 million securities scam.

According to prosecutors, over the course of working for several securities firm over the last seven years, Lawrence falsely offered risky investments with the promise of 20% to 100% returns. He lost a significant amount of money and invested just a portion of investors’ funds. Lawrence used a lot of investors’ cash to cover his own living expenses, personal travel, as well as pay for fancy jewelry. The Associated Press reports that to date Lawrence has given back $581,000 to investors.

Minnesota-Based Brokerage Firm Files for Bankruptcy
Broker-dealer Fintegra has filed for bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Minnesota. The firm had to stop its securities business in June after it was hit with a $1.5M arbitration award that placed it under the $250,000 regulatory net capital requirements of minimum.

According to the FINRA arbitration panel, Finestra and a broker violated state anti-fraud provisions related to the sale of Miasole Investments II, an unregistered security. The securities fraud complaint, submitted by Fintegra customers, states that the broker-dealer could only pay $300,000 of the award. However, InvestmentNews reported that the attorneys for one of the clients said that to date none of the award has been paid.

Fintegra, in its FOCUS report with the SEC, admitted that it had been named in five separate lawsuits, all involving the alleged sale of securities that were either unsuitable or violated state securities laws.
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