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Former Investment Fund Manager from Los Angeles Charged with Defrauding Investors
John Farahi, of Bel Air Estates, California, was named in a 41-count indictment returned on December 7, 2011 by a federal grand jury. The former investment fund manager defrauded investors out of millions of dollars by falsely promising investors their money would be invested conservatively to purchase corporate bonds backed by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and then collaborating with his corporate counsel to cover-up the fraud.
Farahi, a former Reno, Nevada City Council Member and Farsi-language radio investment advisor, instead used the investment funds for a variety of personal purposes, including to support his family’s lavish lifestyle, to make Ponzi payments to early clients of his investment fund, and to trade in high-risk and speculative future options trading. Farahi was able to attract many of his clients through his daily radio show in which he touted a conservative investment philosophy. Most of his clients were members of the Southern California Iranian-Jewish community.
In the face of huge trading losses at the end of 2008, Farahi allegedly tried to extend the scheme by drawing down extensively on lines of credits at banks while making false statements to those banks about his financial condition. The victim banks included TARP recipients Bank of America and U.S. Bank as well as Sun West Bank.
The indictment charges Farahi with 16 counts of mail fraud, one count of wire fraud, five counts of offering for sale unregistered securities, four counts of loan fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, five counts of alteration of documents, one count of suborning perjury, one count of concealing a material fact, one count of witness tampering. If he is convicted of the 40 counts in which he is charged, Farahi would face a statutory maximum sentence of 717 years in federal prison.
It is alleged that Farahi’s scheme lasted from 2005 until 2010. The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) had filed a federal complaint alleging violations of federal securities laws against Farahi and other in January 2010. Many of the charges Farahi now faces are derived from his attempts to mislead, conceal, and redirect the SEC’s investigation. Otherwise known as cover-up crimes, targets of federal investigations often get themselves into more trouble early on in an investigation by lying to investigators or acting unethically. Now that the SEC has referred the case to the DOJ for criminal prosecution, Farahi now faces a significant number of charges in addition to his initial fraud scheme.
The author of this blog is Erich Ferrari, an attorney specializing in Federal Criminal Defense matters. If you have any questions please contact him at 202-280-6370 or ferrari@ferrari-legal.com.
Former Portfolio Manager Charged with Fraudulently Overvaluing Hedge Fund Assets
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that hedge fund portfolio manager Michael Balboa was arrested on December 1, 2011 on charges related to his alleged scheme to overvalue by more than $80 million the assets of Millennnium Global Emerging Credit Fund (the “Hedge Fund”), the hedge fund at which he was employed. Balboa, a resident of the United Kingdom, was arrested in New York City and was presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein the same day. Mr. Balboa was also subject to an SEC complaint alleging many of the same facts. The case was referred to Justice for criminal prosecution.
As alleged, Balboa, along with co-conspirators, manipulated the valuation process at his former hedge fund to make it appear financially stronger than it really was and for his own personal gain. U.S. Attorney Preet Bhara stated that those actions of Balboa harmed the fund and deceived its investors.
The Indictment alleges that Balboa served as the portfolio manager for the Hedge Fund from December 2006 to October 2008, when it ceased operation. The Hedge Fund’s strategy was to invest in a portfolio of corporate and soveriegn debt instruments in emerging countries. The Hedge Fund utilized an independent valuation agent (the “IVA”) to determine its “net asset value” (“NAV”), which is the value of the Hedge Fund’s assets, less liabilities and estimated costs of sale/liquidation. The Hedge Fund referenced the role of the IVA in a variety of documents that were sent to its investors and prospective investors, including an offering memorandum, monthly newsletters, and responses to due diligence questionnaires (“DDQs”). In one DDQ, the Hedge Fund noted that “[t]here are no assets valued in house,” and that the IVA “calculates the NAV of [the Hedge Fund] independently of Millennium Global.” The Hedge Fund relied on the IVA’s determinations in advising its investors of the Hedge Fund’s month-end NAV and NAV per share.
From January 2008 through October 2008, Blaboa allegedly instructed two co-conspirators (“CC-1” and “CC-2”) to provide the IVA with substantially inflated prices for one of the Hedge Fund’s securities – payment-adjusted warrants from the Government of Nigeria (the “Nigerian Warrants”). CC-1 and/or CC-2 provided these overvalued prices to the IVA. Although the Nigerian Warrants traded between $145 and $258 from January 2007 to October 2008, CC-1 and/or CC-2 provided the IVA with price valuations or “marks” ranging from $531.25 to $3,500.00, at various times throughout this period. The IVA then used these falsely inflated marks in computing the monthly NAV for the Hedge Fund. This caused the IVA to overstate the NAV by tens of millions of dollars. These overstatements were communicated to investors through, among other things, monthly newsletters that outlined the NAV and NAV per share of the Hedge Fund.
Balboa is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. The conspiracy count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and the substantive counts each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The investigation leading up to the charges Balboa now faces were brought in coordination with President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, an interagency task force designed to wage an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. Individuals involved in the financial industry should strive to follow protocol at all stages of their dealings to avoid being caught up in an investigation by this formidable body.
The author of this blog is Erich Ferrari, an attorney specializing in Federal Criminal Defense matters. If you have any questions please contact him at 202-280-6370 or ferrari@ferrari-legal.com.
Individuals Could Face Decades in Prison for Stock Manipulation Scheme – Attorney also Charged
Three stock promoters have been indicted for their roles in a stock manipulation scheme that defrauded investors. Timothy Barham Jr., 43, of Henderson, Tenn.; Nathan Montgomery, 30, of Henderson, Nev.; and Ryan Reynolds, 39, of Dallas, were each charged in a superseding indictment filed on April 28, 2011, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The superseding indictment charges Barham, Montgomery and Reynolds each with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud. The superseding indictment also charges six individuals who were originally indicted in February 2010 for their roles in the fraud scheme: Jonathan Randall Curshen, 46, of Sarasota, Fla.; Michael Simon Krome, 49, Long Island, N.Y.; Ronald Salazar Morales, aka “Ronny Salazar,” 39, of Costa Rica; Robert Lloyd Weidenbaum, 44, of Miami; and Eric Ariav Weinbaum, 37, and Izhack Zigdon, 47, both of Israel.
The defendants are all charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities, mail and wire fraud. Additionally, as in the original indictment, the superseding indictment charges Krome, the attorney, with one count of securities registration violation, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of wire fraud. Weinbaum and Zigdon also continue to be charged with three counts of wire fraud. In addition, Curshen and Salazar each are charged with two counts of mail fraud, and Weidenbaum and Weinbaum each are charged with one count of mail fraud. The superseding indictment also charges Curshen and Salazar with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The superseding indictment seeks forfeiture in the amount of $7 million.
Weinbaum and Zigdon took control of a company called CO2 Tech, which traded in the OTC market. Weinbaum and Zigdon obtained the shares by retaining Krome, a securities attorney. Krome allegedly evaded federal securities regulation requirements in order to provide co-conspirators with millions of unregistered shares of CO2 Tech that could not have otherwise been legally obtained.
In the indictment, the defendants fraudulently pumped up the market price and demand for CO2 Tech’s stock by making coordinated trades between themselves and making it appear that there were genuine investors in the market that were buying the shares. The defendants are also alleged to have made false and misleading press releases about CO2 Tech’s business relationships. After all the coordinated trades and false press releases artifically pumped the price of CO2 Tech, the defendants “dumped” their shares by selling them for huge profits at the expense of the general investing public.
Each count of wire fraud and mail fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The fraud conspiracy charges carry identical penalties as the substantive fraud offenses, up to 20 years imprisonment. The securities registration violation carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine and the obstruction count carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The money laundering conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Each participant is facing decades of prison time for their participation in this scheme.
The author of this blog is Erich Ferrari, an attorney specializing in Federal Criminal Defense matters. If you have any questions please contact him at 202-280-6370 or ferrari@ferrari-legal.com.
