(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges and an emergency asset freeze obtained against a Michigan-based pastor accused of exploiting church members, retirees, and laid-off auto workers who were misled to believe they were investing in a successful real estate business.<\/p>\n
The SEC alleges that Larry Holley, the pastor of Abundant Life Ministries in Flint, Mich., cloaked his solicitations in faith-based rhetoric, replete with references to scripture and biblical figures. Holley allegedly told prospective investors that as a person who \u201cprayed for your children,\u201d he was more trustworthy than a \u201cbanker\u201d with their money. According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Holley held financial presentations masked as \u201cBlessed Life Conferences\u201d at churches nationwide during which he asked congregants to fill out cards detailing their financial holdings, and he promised to pray over the cards and invited attendees to have one-on-one consultations with his team. He allegedly called his investors \u201cmillionaires in the making.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, which also charges Holley\u2019s company Treasure Enterprise LLC and his business associate Patricia Enright Gray, approximately $6.7 million was raised from more than 80 investors who were guaranteed high returns and told they were investing in a profitable real estate company with hundreds of residential and commercial properties. <\/p>\n
According to the complaint, Gray advertised on a religious radio station based in Flint and singled out recently laid-off auto workers with severance packages to consult her for a \u201cfinancial increase.\u201d Gray allegedly promised to roll over investors\u2019 retirement funds into tax-advantaged Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) and invest them in Treasure Enterprise. The SEC alleges that no investor funds were deposited into IRAs, and Treasure Enterprise struggled to generate enough revenue from its real estate investments to support the business and make payments owed to investors. Treasure Enterprise owes investors an estimated $1.9 million in past due payments, according to the SEC\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs alleged in our complaint, Holley and Gray targeted the retirement savings of churchgoers, building a bond of trust purportedly based on faith but actually based on false promises,\u201d said David Glockner, Director of the SEC\u2019s Chicago Regional Office.<\/p>\n
According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Holley, Gray, and Treasure Enterprise were not registered to sell investments. The SEC encourages investors to check the background of anyone offering to sell them investments by doing a quick search on the SEC\u2019s investor.gov website.<\/p>\n
The SEC has obtained a temporary restraining order in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan that freezes the assets of Holley, Gray, and Treasure Enterprise. The court\u2019s order also appoints a receiver and imposes other emergency relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges and an emergency asset freeze obtained against a Michigan-based pastor accused of exploiting church members, retirees, and laid-off auto workers who were misled to believe they were investing in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[919,16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedge-fund-research","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57633","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57634,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57633\/revisions\/57634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}