Securities Fraud

December 21, 2015

The SEC charged Donald Toomer, a Las Vegas-based financial advisor, in connection with previously filed fraud charges against Samuel DelPresto.  The SEC alleges that Toomer, to assist DelPresto in demonstrating liquidity and market demand for his microcap stocks, agreed to buy shares of three microcap stocks in client accounts in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.  In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced criminal charges against Toomer.  SEC

December 18, 2015

The SEC charged known securities fraudster, Edward Durante, with defrauding investors by selling shares of a shell company he secretly controlled and falsely telling them stock sale proceeds would be used to fund the company’s operations when they were actually tapped for other purposes including Durante’s personal use.  Durante served a 10-year prison term following a previous securities fraud conviction in 2001.  An SEC investigation revealed that he has again been soliciting investors under aliases and between 2012 and 2014 defrauded at least 50 relatively inexperienced investors through at least $11 million in sales of stock in his shell company VGTel.  SEC

December 18, 2015

J.P. Morgan wealth management subsidiaries, J.P. MorganSecurities LLC and JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., will pay $267 million to settle charges that they failed to disclose conflicts of interest to clients.  An SEC investigation found that the businesses preferred to invest clients in the firm’s own proprietary investment products without properly disclosing this preference.  This preference impacted fundamental aspects of money management — asset allocation and selection of fund managers.  In a parallel action, JP Morgan Chase Bank will pay an additional $40 million penalty to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.  SEC

December 17, 2015

The SEC charged Martin Shkreli, former CEO of pharmaceutical company Retrophin, with committing fraud during a five-year period when he was also working as a hedge fund manager.  The SEC alleges that Shkreli misappropriated money from two hedge funds he founded and made material misrepresentations to investors among other widespread misconduct, including fraudulently inducing Retrophin to issue stock and make cash payments to certain disgruntled investors in Shkreli’s hedge funds who were threatening legal action.  The SEC also charged Retrophin’s former outside counsel and corporate secretary Evan Greebel with aiding and abetting certain aspects of Shkreli’s alleged fraud.  In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced criminal charges against Shkreli and Greebel.  SEC

December 16, 2015

The SEC barred hedge fund adviser Owen Li from the securities industry and censured his associated firm Canarsie Capital LLC after Li made a series of false statements to investors and ultimately caused a fund’s collapse.  In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal charges against Li.  Monetary sanctions are expected to be ordered in this parallel criminal proceeding.  SEC

December 15, 2015

The SEC announced fraud charges against Connecticut-based investment advisory firm Atlantic Asset Management LLC for investing clients in certain bonds with a hidden financial benefit to the broker-dealer connected to the firm.  The SEC alleges that Atlantic invested more than $43 million of client funds in illiquid bonds issued by a native American tribal corporation without disclosing the conflict of interest that the bond sales generated a private placement fee for the broker-dealer, whose parent company partially owns Atlantic.  SEC

December 15, 2015

The SEC charged New Jersey resident Samuel DelPresto and his company MLF Group, Inc. with illicitly pocketing $13 million from an elaborate pump-and-dump scheme.  The SEC alleges that DelPresto teamed with others to secretly obtain control of substantially all available stock in four microcap companies,BioNeutral Group, NXT Nutritionals Holdings, Mesa Energy Holdings, and Clear-Lite Holdings, and facilitate coordinated trading that created the appearance of liquidity and market demand for the stocks.  After unwitting investors were enticed through promotional campaigns to buy the stock at inflated prices, DelPresto dumped his shares on the market.  In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of new Jersey announced criminal charges against DelPresto.  SEC

December 11, 2015

The SEC announced fraud charges and a court-ordered asset freeze against penny stock company Oxford City Football Club, Inc.  The SEC alleges that Oxford City’s CEO, Thomas Anthony Guerriero, used pressure tactics and a boiler room of salespeople to raise more than $6.5 million from primarily inexperienced investors who were misled to believe that the company was a thriving conglomerate of sports teams, academic institutions, and real estate holdings.  The company even falsely touted itself as “the largest publicly traded diversified portfolio of professional sports teams in the world.”  In reality, the company was losing millions of dollars each year and turning zero profit from its two lower-division soccer teams in the U.K.  SEC

December 10, 2015

Through orders instituting settled administrative proceedings, the SEC suspended five accountants and two associated auditing firms from practicing or appearing before the SEC.  The SEC’s orders found that the accountants and firms at various times performed deficient audits of public companies, jeopardized the independence of other audits, falsified and backdated audit documents, and violated other key rules designed to preserve the integrity of the financial reporting system. SEC

December 7, 2015

The SEC announced a series of enforcement actions against lawyers across the country charged with offering EB-5 investments while not registered to act as brokers.  The SEC settled administrative proceedings against at least seven immigration law firms and/or attorneys, who agreed to cease and desist from acting as unregistered brokers, and collectively will pay over $700,000 in disgorgement, penalties, and prejudgment interest.  The SEC also filed a complaint in federal district court in Los Angeles alleging that immigration attorney Hui Feng and the Law Office of Feng & Associates not only acted as unregistered brokers by selling EB-5 investments to more than 100 investors, but also defrauded their clients by failing to disclose their receipt of commissions on the investments in breach of their fiduciary and legal duties. SEC