Corporate & Securities Law

Fair Financial, Tim Durham?s Future Could Be Numbered

Posted on February 01, 2010
Tim Durham?s Fair Finance Company has officially withdrawn its request from the Ohio Department of Commerce?s Division of Securities to sell additional investment certificates to Ohio investors. The company has remained on lock down since Nov. 24 after federal prosecutors filed court papers accusing Durham of running a Ponzi scheme...

Mass. Complaint Offers Damaging Evidence In Securities America Case

Posted on January 30, 2010
A complaint against Securities America contains a lengthy and potentially damaging list of allegations against the Omaha broker-dealer and its sales of private offerings in Medical Capital Holdings. The complaint, which was filed Jan. 26 by Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, accuses Securities America of not only misleading investors but also intentionally making material [...

Main Street Natural Gas Bonds: The Ripple Effects Continue

Posted on January 29, 2010
Main Street Natural Gas Bonds are an investment that many investors would like to forget. On Sept. 15, a $700 million deal called Main Street Natural Gas Bonds exploded, plummeting in value after Lehman Brothers Holdings - which guaranteed the bonds - filed for bankruptcy protection...

Inland American REITs: Fraud Recovery For Investors

Posted on January 29, 2010
Investments in Inland American REITs have backfired for investors throughout the country. In many instances, these products - including the Inland American Real Estate Trust and Inland Western Retail Real Estate Trust - were pitched by broker/dealers as a low-risk, conservative investment...

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Did Securities America Hide Risks From Investors?

Posted on January 28, 2010
The state of Massachusetts apparently thinks so. Secretary of State William Galvin filed charges against Securities America on Jan. 26, accusing the broker/dealer of keeping investors in the dark about the risks of nearly $700 million in private placement securities issued by Medical Capital Holdings...

MedCap Investors Want Answers From Securities America

Posted on January 28, 2010
In an ironic twist, just two days after the state of Massachusetts filed charges against Securities America for allegedly misleading investors about sales of Medical Capital notes, the Omaha-based broker/dealer issued a press release announcing new members for its 2010 Advisory Council...

Securities America Charged In Medical Capital Case

Posted on January 27, 2010
Things are heating up for Securities America, which finds itself at the center of a regulatory probe involving sales of private placement securities. On Jan. 26, Massachusetts? top securities regulator, William Galvin, filed the first state enforcement case against Securities America, accusing the Omaha-based broker/dealer of failing to tell investors about all of the risks [...

Mass. Seeks Restitution for Securities America Investors

Posted on January 26, 2010
Securities America, a broker/dealer division of Ameriprise Financial, is facing charges by Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin for allegedly making omissions and misleading statements in connection to sales of some $700 million in promissory notes...

Goldman Sachs Causes Outrage Over Executive Pay

Posted on January 22, 2010
Goldman Sachs just announced a compensation pool- which translates into year-end bonuses and executive pay - of $16.2 billion for 2009. That?s up 47% from the previous year. The news come amid a backlash of criticism from investors and lawmakers alike who say Goldman and other Wall Street players continue to reap the benefits of [...

Preferred Stock Losses: Freddie Mac Series Z

Posted on January 21, 2010
Investors of Freddie Mac Preferred Stock, Series Z are unlikely to forget the date of Sept. 6, 2008. It was on that day the U.S. government made the unprecedented move to place both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae under the conservatorship of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)...

Inland American Real Estate Trust: Buyer Beware

Posted on January 20, 2010
Inland American Real Estate Trust is among several unlisted real estate investment trusts (REITs) to face a wave of backlash from investors lately. Why? Because many independent broker/dealers and their financial advisers misrepresented the risks and characteristics of unlisted REITs like the Inland American Real Estate Trust...

Oren Eugene Sullivan: Former New York Life Broker Charged In Ponzi Scheme

Posted on January 20, 2010
Oren Eugene Sullivan, a former broker with New York Life Securities, was a master at pulling the wool over investors? eyes. For decades, the former South Carolina broker fleeced investors out of millions of dollars in an elaborate Ponzi scheme. What makes Sullivan?s case truly shocking, however, are the victims Sullivan allegedly preyed upon...

Kevin O?Brien: Citizens Launch Campaign Against Broker-Turned Trustee

Posted on January 17, 2010
Kevin O?Brien?s past has come back to haunt him. After learning the former Robert W. Baird & Co. broker was kicked out the brokerage industry, a group of Cincinnati residents have waged a campaign to get O?Brien to resign from his position as the newly elected trustee of Anderson Township...

Medical Capital Fraud: Latest Update

Posted on January 17, 2010
Thomas Seaman, the court-appointed receiver in the Medical Capital fraud case, filed his sixth status report on Medical Capital Holdings on Jan. 11, 2010. Among the highlights revealed in the document: Investors are owed more than $1.7 billion and Medical Capital?s lending activities have been deemed unprofitable beginning with the creation of its first Medical [...

The Main Street Natural Gas Bond Debacle

Posted on January 16, 2010
The story of Main Street Natural Gas Bonds serves as an invaluable lesson on the Wall Street-Main Street connection. Marketed as a supposedly ?safe? investment, Main Street Natural Gas Bonds have spurned a cadre of lawsuits from investors who allege that brokerage firms misrepresented the safety of the bonds and omitted other key material facts [...

Behringer Harvard REIT Presents Financial Challenge For Investors

Posted on January 15, 2010
The Behringer Harvard REIT and other unlisted real estate investment trusts like it are generating a myriad of questions by investors who say their broker/dealer misrepresented the products as safe investment vehicles that offered guaranteed dividends and little to no volatility...

Private Placement Woes

Posted on January 15, 2010
An increase in fraudulent private placement offerings has state regulators pushing for tougher regulatory reforms that will give them more control and oversight of private placement issuers. In particular, states securities regulators want authority to control those issuers that have prior convictions for securities fraud or other offenses...

Jeremy McGilvrey: Disgraced Broker Used Investors? Funds For Gambling Debts

Posted on January 14, 2010
Former San Antonio broker Jeremy McGilvrey allegedly used the money he fleeced from investors to take care of personal business, which apparently included a bevy of Las Vegas casino debts, credit card bills and the purchase of a new Mercedes Benz. McGilvrey?s fancy living came to an end in August 2009, following an investigation by [...

Medical Capital Lawsuit Becomes Investors? Legal Weapon Of Choice

Posted on January 14, 2010
The phrase ?Medical Capital lawsuit? has become increasingly popular among investors following recent fraud charges filed against the Tustin-based healthcare company by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In its complaint, the SEC accuses Medical Capital Holdings, Medical Capital Corporation, Medical Provider Funding Corporation VI and company officers Sidney M...

Medical Capital Losses

Posted on January 14, 2010
Medical Capital losses may be changing the face of future private placement deals. In July, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) levied fraud charges against Medical Capital Holdings, bringing into question the suitability of the products and the sales tactics used by broker/dealers that sold the private placements to individual investors...

Bringing Down The Financial House: Synthetic CDOs

Posted on January 13, 2010
Synthetic collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, are complex mortgage-linked debt products that have been blamed for bringing Wall Street to its knees and pummeling millions of investors in the process. It was in the fall of 2007, when the financial markets first started to become unhinged, that these high-risk instruments found their way into the [...

Medical Capital Fraud Recovery: Investor Alert

Posted on January 09, 2010
The number of investors who suffered losses in private securities issued by Medical Provider Funding Corporation and Medical Capital Holdings is growing daily. In July, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed fraud charges against Medical Capital in connection to the sale of $77 million of these investments...

Main Street Natural Gas Bonds Not Cooking For Investors

Posted on January 08, 2010
Main Street Natural Gas Bonds have proven to be an investor?s worst nightmare after they became subject to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings. Marketed and sold by a number of brokerages as safe, conservative municipal bonds, Main Street Natural Gas Bonds actually were complex derivative securities backed by Lehman Brothers...

Jeremy McGilvrey, Next Financial Group broker, Prison bound

Posted on January 08, 2010
Jeremy McGilvrey, a former broker with Next Financial Group and LPL Financial and one-time CEO of the now-defunct Hill Country Wealth investment firm, had a reputation for extravagance: A black Bentley convertible, exotic vacations and celebrity parties...

First Allied Securities, Broker Harold Jaschke Cited In SEC Complaint

Posted on December 30, 2009
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Harold. H. Jaschke, a former broker with First Allied Securities, with fraud for allegedly churning accounts held by the city of Kissimmee, Florida, and the Tohopekaliga Water Authority and lying to both government bodies about his trading practices...

A Ponzi Nation

Posted on December 30, 2009
Eighty years after Charles Ponzi made the word Ponzi a household name by scamming investors out of more than $10 million, the same schemes continue to thrive today. In 2009, there were nearly four times as many Ponzi schemes uncovered in comparison to 2008...

Kevin O?Brien: Banned Broker Now Township Trustee

Posted on December 29, 2009
Kevin O?Brien?s flight from the securities industry serves as a reminder to investors that rogue brokers don?t go away, they just find new jobs. O?Brien, a former registered representative with Robert W. Baird & Co., was barred on Sept. 14, 2009, from working in the securities industry...

Tim Durham May Have Little To Smile About In New Year

Posted on December 25, 2009
Troubled financier Tim Durham can likely look forward to an equally troubled 2010. His reputation as a formidable businessman and leveraged buyout specialist is in obvious disarray. He is the subject of a federal investigation that accuses him of running a Ponzi scheme and defrauding Ohio investors of more than $200 million...

Tim Durham Caught In Ponzi Scheme Probe

Posted on December 24, 2009
Tim Durham?s name used to be associated with a lavish lifestyle that entailed a 30,000-square-foot mansion and an eclectic collection of exotic and classic cars. Now, it?s a Ponzi scheme being linked to the flamboyant businessman. Durham is the subject of a federal investigation for running an alleged Ponzi scheme through his company, Fair Finance, which [...

Fair Finance Faces Another Investor Lawsuit

Posted on December 23, 2009
For the second time this month, Fair Finance and owner Tim Durham face a lawsuit filed on behalf of disgruntled investors. The most recent legal action involves a group of Wayne County residents, including Amish investors, who are suing Akron-based Fair Finance over allegations the company owes them nearly $2...

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