(HedgeCo.Net) A former Rockland County, New York-based investment adviser and his daughter have been charged by the SEC with conducting an alleged multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that defrauded local community members as well as members of their family and close friends.<\/p>\n
The SEC alleges that Hector May, an investment adviser representative and the president and chief compliance officer of the now-defunct Executive Compensation Planners Inc. (ECP), and his daughter Vania Bell, who served as ECP\u2019s controller and senior compliance administrator, misappropriated more than $7.9 million in a Ponzi scheme involving bonds.<\/p>\n
According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, with Bell\u2019s help, May lied to investors by promising to invest their money in bonds when they actually used the money to pay for personal and business expenses, as well as extravagant items, such as jewelry, furs, vacations, and a limousine driver. To conceal the fraudulent scheme, they sent bogus account statements to clients referencing the bonds that had never been purchased. <\/p>\n
In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced criminal charges against May, and he has pleaded guilty to those charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs alleged, this father-daughter team betrayed the very people who knew and trusted them \u2013 including family members, close friends, seniors, and local community members,\u201d said Marc P. Berger, Director of the SEC\u2019s New York Regional Office.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (OIEA) and the Retail Strategy Task Force issued an Investor Alert discussing the classic warning signs of a Ponzi scheme targeting retail investors, including seniors. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Enforcement Division protects retail investors by bringing impactful cases and partnering with OIEA to provide investors with tools to educate and empower themselves,\u201d said Charu A. Chandrasekhar, Chief of the Division of Enforcement\u2019s Retail Strategy Task Force.<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, charges May and Bell with violating the antifraud provisions of the securities laws. May has agreed to the entry of a partial judgment against him in which he consents to injunctive relief with monetary and other relief to be decided in the future. The SEC seeks the return of ill-gotten gains, with interest, as well as financial penalties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) A former Rockland County, New York-based investment adviser and his daughter have been charged by the SEC with conducting an alleged multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme that defrauded local community members as well as members of their family and close […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news","category-insider-trading-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67098","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=67098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67099,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67098\/revisions\/67099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}