Trevor Cook

The Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press are reporting that Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme pitchmen Jason Bo-Alan Beckman, Pat Kiley and Gerald Durand have been found guilty in federal court in Minnesota. Read breaking coverage at the Star Tribune. Read breaking coverage at the Pioneer Press. The PP Blog will have more on the verdicts […]

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 […]

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 […]

BULLETIN: A new indictment has been returned in the case of Jason Bo-Alan Beckman, Gerald Durand and Pat Kiley — all figures in the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme that allegedly gathered $194 million and one was of the largest financial crimes in Minnesota history. Among the stunning new allegations is that Beckman tried to inflate […]

UPDATE: Facing a margin deficit of more than $10 million and at risk of having his trading account closed in February 2008, Jason Bo-Alan Beckman — a figure in the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme — sought to address the whopping shortfall and prop up the monumental fraud by stealing about $3.9 million from an elderly […]

URGENT >> BULLETIN >> MOVING: UPDATED 7:02 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) Former radio host Pat Kiley and two others have been indicted criminally in the $194 million Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme, federal prosecutors in Minnesota said this afternoon. The others are Jason Bo-Alan Beckman, 41, and Gerald Joseph Durand, 60. Kiley is 73.  He formerly hosted […]

Jon Jason Greco, 40, of Minneapolis, has pleaded guilty to making a false and material statement in the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme. He faces up to five years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not been scheduled. Greco came into possession of loot from the scheme after its 2009 collapse, stashing it in a […]

BULLETIN: Christopher Pettengill, a figure in the $194 million Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme, has pleaded guilty in Minneapolis to securities fraud, money-laundering and conspiracy, the FBI said. Read Breaking News coverage in the Star Tribune, which is reporting that Pettengill says he has been cooperating with federal investigators since January. Pettengill, 54, of Plymouth, Minn., […]

BULLETIN: The court-appointed receiver in the Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme has recovered more than $1.1 million that had been tied up in Switzerland. Receiver R.J. Zayed says that $1,127,495 has been deposited in a U.S. Court account. “[T]he Receiver has now accomplished the goal of repatriating the Swiss funds so that money can be returned […]

BULLETIN: In 2009, federal prosecutors warned that pro se pleadings by members of Florida-based AdSurfDaily had the potential to slow efforts to provide restitution for victims of the ASD Ponzi scheme. Pro se filings by ASD President Andy Bowdoin and dozens of ASD members crowded the court docket for months and delayed the implementation of […]

The civil litigation in the $194 million Trevor Cook Ponzi and Forex caper has taken a strange turn. Former radio host Pat Kiley, a Cook co-defendant in civil cases brought by the SEC and CFTC, has filed a pro se pleading asking Chief U.S. District Judge Michael J. Davis to order David Slovick, an attorney […]