Government Enforcement Actions

August 7, 2015

The CFTC has filed an enforcement action against Gary Creagh and Wall Street Pirate Management, LLC, both of New York, for making false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or omissions to the National Futures Association.  CFTC

August 7, 2015

The FTC charged a data broker operation, including Sequoia One LLC and Gen X Marketing Group LLC, with illegally selling payday loan applicants’ financial information to a scam operation that took millions of dollars from consumers by debiting their bank accounts and charging their credit cards without their consent. According to the FTC’s complaint, the data broker enterprise bought loan applications from the operators of payday loan websites, and got others directly from consumers via their own payday loan websites. Instead of passing on those applications to legitimate payday lenders, the defendants sold the information to companies that raided the consumers’ accounts for at least $7.1 million. FTC

August 6, 2015

The CFTC ordered Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC to pay a $300,000 penalty for failing to hold sufficient U.S. dollars in segregated accounts in the United States to meet all of its obligations to cleared swaps customers.  CFTC

August 5, 2015

The District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Wayne P. Weddington III and his companies Brunswick Capital LLC and Brunswick Capital Partners LP to pay over $1 million in penalties and restitution for defrauding customers.  CFTC

August 4, 2015

Pediatric Services of America, Inc., reached a $2.7 million federal-state settlement resolving allegations that the company inappropriately failed to return overpayments received from state Medicaid programs as well as other federally insured health programs. PSA is also alleged to have overcharged for home nursing services by improperly rounding-up claims to the nearest whole hour. Connecticut Department of Social Service Commissioner Roderick L. Bremby said, “This settlement exemplifies the outstanding work across the state and federal governments to obtain compensation for the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program when medical providers cross the line.” CT

August 4, 2015

The operators of a bogus credit repair scheme that allegedly tricked Spanish-speaking consumers into paying thousands of dollars each to supposedly improve their credit will be banned from offering credit repair services and subject to a monetary judgment under settlements with the FTC. According to a federal court complaint filed by the Commission in March 2015, the defendants did business using the name FTC Credit Solutions, misleading consumers not only about the nature of the alleged credit repair services they offered, but also claiming an affiliation with the Commission that did not exist. FTC

August 3, 2015

19 states and the federal government have joined in a settlement valued at over $2.7 million with Georgia-based company Pediatric Services of America, Inc. (“PSA”). The case began as a whistleblower action, filed in the Southern District of Georgia under the federal False Claims Act and various state false claims statutes, and was investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of the Inspector General. In addition, a National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units (NAMFCU) Team participated in the investigation and conducted the settlement negotiations with PSA on behalf of the states and included representatives from the Offices of the Attorneys General for the states of Massachusetts, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, and Washington. MA

August 3, 2015

The CFTC has charged Husam Tayeh of Oak Lawn, Illinois, as well as Nevada corporations Dinar Corp., Inc. and My Monex, Inc., with operating a fraudulent scheme involving foreign currency (forex) and failing to register with the CFTC.  CFTC

July 31, 2015

Keith F. Simmons and his company, Black Diamond Capital Solutions, LLC, and Deanna Salazar and her companies, Life Plus Group, LLC and Black Diamond Holdings, LLC, have been hit with a $76 million penalty for running a foreign currency exchange (forex) Ponzi scheme.  CFTC

July 29, 2015

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced the sentencing of the executive director of a company for stealing funds from the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion program, a Medicaid-funded program that provides senior citizens and those suffering from physical disabilities an alternative to institutional living through the use of Medicaid funds for renovations to the homes of the elderly and disabled (wheelchair ramps, grab bars, etc.). Defendant plead guilty to grand larceny, based on the submission of bids and cost reports, which falsely stated the actual costs of the projects, significantly inflating the actual costs or including services which were never provided. NY