Investor's Watchdog.com: Stock, finance and investment protection for investors

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged an Illinois investment adviser with misappropriating more than $4 million in investor funds.  Specifically, the Commission charged The Nutmeg Group, LLC, and its principals Randall and David Goulding with paying the $4 million in investor funds to David Goulding, Inc., David Samuel, LLC, Financial Alchemy, LLC, Philly Financial, LLC, Samuel Wayne and Eric Irrgang.  (more…)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Jeffrey Laumbattus with fraudulently obtaining $150,000 from at least 12 individuals who thought he would invest their money in the U.S. stock market.  According to the complaint, Laumbattus used the monies for his personal use, and never invested in the stock market at all. (more…)

He promised low-risk, high return investments.  Who isn’t going to listen to a deal like that?  At least seventeen investors, many of them seniors, did listen to Rick J. Boros, a/k/a Vincent Kwiatkowski (“Boros”) . . .  and lost more than $1.2 million.  On September 3, 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) stopped Boros before he could steal many more millions from many more senior citizens.   The SEC’s press release about the case reads, in part: (more…)

Len Wells of the Evansville Courier & Press reports that  Carl E. Royse of Fairfield, Ill., and his daughter, Jeanette Riley of Olney, Illinois have pleaded guilty to scamming investors out of approximately $4 million in connection with a scam structured around bogus oil wells.  Wells reports: (more…)

The SEC has halted another allegedly fraudulent offering, obtaining a temporary restraining order (TRO) and an asset freeze in a case against Jay Johnson (Johnson) of Downers Grove, Illinois, and his company, Hyatt Johnson Capital, LLC (HJ Capital).  The Commission alleges that from 2003 through 2007 the defendants acted as unregistered broker-dealers and investment advisers, and raised at least $24.5 million from approximately 120 investors in at least twelve states by promising them that their money would be used to buy certain securities.  

In reality, according to the SEC: (more…)

The Securities and Exchange Commission has come to the rescue of hundreds of investors of a registered broker-dealer, obtaining a temporary restraining order against Enterprise Trust Company (Enterprise), its President, John H. Lohmeier (Lohmeier), and its Vice President, Rebecca Townsend (Townsend).  According to the Commission, (more…)

The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed charges against Detroit-area resident Edward May and his company E-M Management Co. LLC alleging that they ran a $250 million fraud for nine years between 1998 and July 2007. According to the SEC, May and E-M defrauded 1,200 investors, many of them senior citizens by falsely representing that they had contracts to provide telecommunications services to several Las Vegas hotels.  May and E-M used “investment seminars” to attract potential investors, touting deals with such major hotel chains and casinos as Hilton, MGM Grand, Motel 6, Tropicana and Sheraton.  The SEC claims that no such deals or contracts ever existed.

The alleged scheme took in investors from several states, including Michigan, California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio and New Jersey.  The case is pending in the U.S. District (more…)