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Category: Alleged Ponzi Schemes

UPDATE: 3 Women Sentenced To Jail For Ponzi Swindle In California; Scam Involved Bogus ‘Milk’ Sales To Disneyland And Allegedly Targeted Parents Of School Children

The three California women who hatched a Ponzi scheme involving purportedly “exclusive” milk sales to Disneyland and allegedly recruited investors from the ranks of local PTA members at an elementary school in the Los Angeles region now have been sentenced to jail terms. (PTA stands for Parent-Teacher Association.) The PP Blog first reported on Maricela…

Apr 25, 2012
UPDATE: John Chiyuan Lee, Scammer Whose Case Shattered Ponzi-Board Myth, Sentenced To California State Prison And Ordered To Make Restitution

In fleeing to Thailand, becoming a fugitive listed by INTERPOL and leaving dozens of U.S. victims in his wake when his Ponzi scheme collapsed, John Chiyuan Lee shattered the Ponzi-forum myth that “offshore equals safe.” “Safe — for a while while INTERPOL is beaming your picture 24/7 and U.S. authorities at the local, state and…

Apr 25, 2012
RECOMMENDED READING: Prospective Class Action Against Accused Ponzi Schemer Ephren W. Taylor II Names Alleged Facilitators And Raises Specter Of Crime Spigot Involving ‘Self-Directed’ IRAs

EDITOR’S NOTE: As America’s fraud plague continues, some of the scammers are polluting the free market with incongruous and even bizarre schemes — even as they purport to represent the best that freedom offers. The PP Blog highly recommends that readers check out this September 2011 document from the SEC that warns about scammers targeting…

Apr 21, 2012
AdSurfDaily Member Dwight Owen Schweitzer Ordered Not To Send Email To Federal Judge

If you’re keeping a list of the strange sidebars associated with the AdSurfDaily Ponzi case, here is another entry for your notebook: U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida has ordered onetime practicing attorney Dwight Schweitzer not to contact her by email. The order was issued Monday, more than five…

Apr 18, 2012
Ponzi Schemer Arthur Nadel Dies; One Of The Original ‘Mini-Madoffs’ Succumbs At 80 At Same Prison Facility That Houses Madoff

Arthur G. Nadel, the Florida fund manager and Ponzi schemer who briefly went on the lam in the weeks after Bernard Madoff’s even-greater caper imploded, has died. Nadel was 80, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Nadel, sentenced in 2010 to 14 years in an elaborate fraud that operated between 1999 and 2009, died at…

Apr 18, 2012
Forex Version Of ‘Mad Men’ Comes To Minnesota: Bo Beckman, Pat Kiley, Gerald Durand Trial Begins This Week; 3 Accused Hucksters Were Associates Of Ponzi Schemer Trevor Cook

If you’re a fan of “Mad Men,” the award-winning AMC television drama now back on the air after a 17-month absence, you’ve seen the cigarettes, the boozing and the debauchery weekly. (Perhaps not only in the show itself, but also in AMC’s promos for the series, a key element of which is the tagline “DEBAUCHERY…

Apr 16, 2012
UPDATE: JSS Tripler 2 And Associated Scams Get More Bizarre By The Day: After Purported Bout With Dengue Fever, ‘Dave’ Purportedly Gets Married; Cashouts Now Reportedly Delayed Due To Wedding And Script Glitch — As Members Encouraged To Carry Out Blog-Posting ‘Tasks’

This will be a familiar refrain to many readers of the PP Blog: In July 2010, the Blog reported that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) had launched a public-awareness campaign about HYIP fraud. FINRA called the HYIP sphere a “bizarre substratum of the Internet.” Just a month earlier — in June 2010 — the…

Apr 15, 2012
BULLETIN: Church Bishop/Attorney Martin T. Sigillito Found Guilty In $52 Million Ponzi Scheme; ‘One Of The Largest Fraud Schemes In Missouri History’

BULLETIN: Martin T. Sigillito, the ordained priest, American Anglican Bishop and attorney, has been found guilty of all 20 counts brought against him in a $52 million Ponzi and fraud caper. A federal jury in St. Louis that deliberated for about six hours found Sigillito guilty of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and money-laundering, the…

Apr 13, 2012
URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: SEC Charges Shervin Neman In Alleged Ponzi Scheme Targeted At Los Angeles Persian-Jewish Community; Federal Judge Issues Emergency Asset Freeze

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: The SEC has gone to federal court in Los Angeles, alleging that a California man was operating a $7.5 million Ponzi scheme targeted at the Persian-Jewish community. U.S. District Judge Jacqueline H. Nguyen has issued an emergency asset freeze. Charged in the alleged affinity-fraud caper was Shervin Neman, 30, of…

Apr 13, 2012
UPDATE: Judge Tosses Lawsuit Filed By AdSurfDaily Members Dwight Owen Schweitzer And Todd Disner Against Rust Consulting

U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of the Southern District of Florida has dismissed a lawsuit by AdSurfDaily members Dwight Owen Schweitzer and Todd Disner against Rust Consulting Inc., the government-approved claims administrator in the civil portion of the ASD Ponzi case. The claims by Schweitzer and Disner were hypothetical in nature and “far from…

Apr 13, 2012
FEDS: Former California National Guard Base Commander Timothy Melvin Murphy Pleads Guilty To Bilking $2.7 Million In Ponzi And Fraud Caper

The onetime commander of the California National Guard base in Los Alamitos has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 28 investors of $2.7 million, federal prosecutors said. Ret. Col. Timothy Melvin Murphy, 70, of Orange, ran his investment scam through an entity known as Capital Investors Inc., also of Orange,…

Apr 12, 2012