(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two residents of Alpharetta, Georgia, Thomas D. Conrad, Jr. and his son, Stuart P. Conrad, and their two unregistered advisory firms, Financial Management Corporation (“FMC”) and Financial Management Corporation, S.R.L. (“FMC Uruguay”), with defrauding investors in a $10.7 million hedge fund primarily managed by Thomas Conrad.

According to the SEC’s complaint, between 2010 and late 2014, Thomas Conrad directed preferential redemptions and other disbursements out of the hedge fund and its feeder funds to himself, Stuart Conrad, their extended family, and certain favored investors, while representing to other investors that redemptions were suspended. The complaint also alleges that Thomas Conrad arranged to increase his compensation from the hedge fund by appointing himself to be a sub-manager, for a fee, and that this additional fee and the related conflict of interest was not disclosed to investors. The complaint further alleges that, in offering literature given to prospective investors, defendants touted Thomas Conrad’s significant experience in the securities industry, but failed to disclose his disciplinary history, which included an industry bar that the SEC imposed on him in 1971. Finally, the complaint alleges that, without disclosure to investors, Thomas Conrad titled certain fund assets in his name, rather than the fund’s name.