UPDATED 9:06 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) A man who filed for bankruptcy twice, has an unpaid federal judgment for running a fraud scheme in the 1990s and managed to rack up convictions for crimes such as grand larceny, wire fraud, mail fraud and bank fraud during his purported business career has been charged by the SEC with operating a $16 million Ponzi and fraud scheme in Philadelphia.
Separately, CBS-3 in Philadelphia is reporting that federal agents raided the man’s offices earlier today.
In an emergency action, the SEC has charged Robert Stinson Jr. with fraud. U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has frozen Stinson’s assets, along with the assets of five relief defendants who allegedly received ill-gotten gains from the scheme.
Relief defendants include Stinson’s wife, Susan L. Stinson, his son, Michael G. Stinson and his ex-wife, Laura Marable. Also named relief defendants were Christine A. Stinson, whose relationship to Stinson was not immediately clear, and First Commonwealth Service, a company associated with Stinson.
Several Stinson-associated companies were named defendants, including Life’s Good Inc., Life’s Good STABL Mortgage Fund LLC, Life’s Good Capital Growth Fund LLC, Life’s Good High Yield Mortgage Fund LLC, JA Capital Fund LLC and Keystone State Capital Corp.
“Stinson falsely claimed that the Life’s Good Funds generated annual returns of 10 to 16 percent by originating more than $30 million in commercial mortgage loans, and other investment income gained on the sale of foreclosure and investment properties,” the SEC charged.
In reality, “Stinson has been stealing investor funds for his personal use, transferring money to family members and others, and using new investor proceeds to make payments to existing investors in the nature of a Ponzi scheme,” the agency said.
The scheme gathered at least $16 million from more than 140 investors.
“This fraud is ongoing,” the SEC charged. “Of the $16 million raised since 2006, at least $12.1 million was raised between April 2009 and May 2010. In May 2010 alone, Stinson raised approximately $2.3 million from at least 30 investors.”
The allegations include a reference to a purported accounting firm — Johnson and Johnson Public Accountants Inc. — that prepared “Consolidated Financial Statements,” but the SEC said there is “no record” of a firm licensed by that name in Pennsylvania.
Web search results show a domain titled “JohnsonJohnsonCPA.com,” which purports on the site to be a company founded in Philadelphia in 1978. Domain records show the site was registered in the name of “Robert Stinson” of Sunnyvale, Calif., in April 2009.
Whether that “Robert Stinson” was the Robert Stinson Jr. charged in the SEC complaint was unclear. The SEC noted several accounting miscalculations and irregularities in the purported consolidated statements.
Stinson Jr. has a long-running criminal record.
In 1986, he was convicted of wire fraud and larceny in U.S. Court in Delaware, according to records. In 1987, he was convicted of forgery and larceny in New Jersey state court. During the same year, he was convicted of mail fraud in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, in 1996, he was convicted of criminal conspiracy in state court in Pennsylvania. In 2001, he was convicted of bank fraud in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Stinson filed two bankruptcy petitions in 1999, one in October and another in December, according to records.
Nine years earlier, in 1990, he was charged with fraud by the SEC. He was ordered to pay a judgment of $7,680, but the judgment remains unpaid, according to court filings.
Read the CBS-3 report.