{"id":40419,"date":"2014-02-04T09:35:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T14:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=40419"},"modified":"2014-02-04T09:36:36","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T14:36:36","slug":"manhattan-private-equity-manager-with-stealing-9-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/02\/2014\/manhattan-private-equity-manager-with-stealing-9-million.html","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan Private Equity Manager Charged With Stealing $9 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/images-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-40421\" alt=\"images (1)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/images-1.jpg\" width=\"259\" height=\"194\" \/><\/a>New York (HedgeCo.Net) &#8211; \u00a0 A Manhattan-based private equity manager,<span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">\u00a0Lawrence E. Penn III and his firm Camelot Acquisitions Secondary Opportunities Management, have had their assets frozen in a case put forward by the SEC. Three entities and one other person were also implicated in the fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The SEC alleges that Penn and his longtime acquaintance Altura S. Ewers concocted a sham due diligence arrangement where Penn used fund assets to pay fake fees to a front company controlled by Ewers.\u00a0 Instead of conducting any due diligence in connection with potential investments by Penn\u2019s fund, Ewers\u2019 company Ssecurion promptly kicked the money back to companies and accounts controlled by Penn so he could secretly spend investor funds for other purposes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPenn held himself out as an ultra-sophisticated and well-connected investor in the private equity world,\u201d said Andrew M. Calamari, director of the SEC\u2019s New York Regional Office.\u00a0 \u201cBehind the scenes, Penn disregarded his obligations to the fund\u2019s investors and treated their assets as his own personal and professional slush fund.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the SEC\u2019s complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, Penn tapped into a network of public pension funds, high net worth individuals, and overseas investors to raise assets for his private equity fund Camelot Acquisitions Secondary Opportunities LP, which he started in early 2010.\u00a0 Penn eventually secured capital commitments of approximately $120 million. The fund is currently invested in growth-stage private companies that are seeking to go public.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC alleges that Penn has diverted approximately $9.3 million in investor assets.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC\u2019s complaint charges Penn, two Camelot entities, Ewers, and Ssecurion with violating the antifraud, books and records, and registration application provisions of the federal securities laws.\u00a0 The complaint seeks final judgments that would require them to disgorge ill-gotten gains with interest, pay financial penalties, and be barred from future violations of the antifraud provisions of the securities laws.\u00a0 The SEC\u2019s complaint also charges another company owned by Ewers \u2013 A Bighouse Photography and Film Studio LLC \u2013 as a relief defendant for the purposes of recovering investor funds it allegedly obtained in the scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Editing by Alex Akesson<br \/>\nFor\u00a0<a title=\"hedge funds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/\">HedgeCo.net<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"mailto:alex@hedgeco.net\">alex@hedgeco.net<\/a><br \/>\n<a title=\"hedge fund\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/\">HedgeCo.Net<\/a>\u00a0is a premier\u00a0<a title=\"hedge fund database\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/\">hedge fund database<\/a>\u00a0and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership in\u00a0<a title=\"hedge fund\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/\">HedgeCo.net<\/a>\u00a0is FREE and EAS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York (HedgeCo.Net) &#8211; \u00a0 A Manhattan-based private equity manager,\u00a0Lawrence E. Penn III and his firm Camelot Acquisitions Secondary Opportunities Management, have had their assets frozen in a case put forward by the SEC. Three entities and one other person [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedge-fund-fraud","category-hedge-fund-regulation","category-hedgeco-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40423,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40419\/revisions\/40423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}