{"id":43912,"date":"2014-09-09T08:19:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T12:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=43912"},"modified":"2014-09-09T08:20:49","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T12:20:49","slug":"hedge-fund-manager-accomplice-charged-with-portfolio-pumping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/09\/2014\/hedge-fund-manager-accomplice-charged-with-portfolio-pumping.html","title":{"rendered":"Hedge Fund Manager &#038; Accomplice Charged With Portfolio Pumping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/dollar-sign-in-clouds.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-43916\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/dollar-sign-in-clouds.jpg\" alt=\"softdollar\" width=\"272\" height=\"217\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/dollar-sign-in-clouds.jpg 388w, https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/dollar-sign-in-clouds-300x238.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 272px) 100vw, 272px\" \/><\/a>New York (HedgeCo.Net) &#8211; Minneapolis-based hedge fund manager Steven R. Markusen and an accomplice Jay C. Cope have been charged by the SEC with bilking investors in two hedge funds out of more than $1 million under the guise of research expenses and fees.\u00a0According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Markusen and Cope also carried out a portfolio pumping scheme by manipulating the price of the thinly-traded stock of CyberOptics Corp.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC alleges that when the management fees earned by Archer Advisors LLC begun shrinking due to the funds\u2019 worsening performance, Markusen routinely caused the funds to reimburse Archer for fake research expenses. As if that wasn&#8217;t enough, the SEC says that the hedge fund manager devised a way to essentially charge fund investors twice for the same fake research expenses.<\/p>\n<p>First, he billed the funds directly by falsely claiming that Archer had paid Cope to conduct \u201cresearch\u201d for the funds. Second, he and Cope improperly diverted soft dollars from the hedge funds to Cope for the same purported \u201cresearch\u201d under the additional pretense that Cope was an independent consultant.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC\u2019s complaint filed in federal court in Minneapolis also charges Markusen and Cope with conducting a separate scheme to manipulate the stock price of the funds\u2019 largest holding in order to inflate the monthly returns reported to investors and conceal the true extent of the funds\u2019 mounting investment losses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMarkusen and his firm had an obligation to manage investor money in the hedge funds fairly and honestly. Instead, he and Cope exploited their control of the funds to engage in long-running schemes to misappropriate fund assets and artificially pump up the value of the poorly-performing funds,\u201d said Robert J. Burson, Associate Director of the SEC\u2019s Chicago Regional Office.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Akesson<br \/>\nEditor for\u00a0<a style=\"color: #743399;\" title=\"hedge funds\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\">HedgeCo.net<\/a><br \/>\n<a style=\"color: #743399;\" href=\"mailto:alex@hedgeco.net\">alex@hedgeco.net<\/a><br \/>\n<a style=\"color: #743399;\" title=\"hedge fund\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\">HedgeCo.Net<\/a>\u00a0is a premier\u00a0<a style=\"color: #743399;\" 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 style=\"color: #743399;\" title=\"hedge fund\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\">HedgeCo.net<\/a>\u00a0is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for\u00a0<a style=\"color: #743399;\" title=\"hedge fund\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\">Hedge Funds<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York (HedgeCo.Net) &#8211; Minneapolis-based hedge fund manager Steven R. Markusen and an accomplice Jay C. Cope have been charged by the SEC with bilking investors in two hedge funds out of more than $1 million under the guise of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedge-fund-fraud","category-hedgeco-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43912","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=43912"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43917,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43912\/revisions\/43917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}