{"id":84548,"date":"2023-04-24T00:14:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T04:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=84548"},"modified":"2023-04-23T23:25:51","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T03:25:51","slug":"sec-files-charges-in-fine-wine-investment-fraud-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/04\/2023\/sec-files-charges-in-fine-wine-investment-fraud-scheme.html","title":{"rendered":"SEC Files Charges in Alleged $8-Million Investment Fraud Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against <strong>Charles Winn LLC<\/strong>, its senior managers, Aaron David Scott-Britten (aka Aaron David, Aaron Scott, and Aaron David K. Britten) and Ohran Emmanuel Stewart (aka Elliott Stewart), Casey Alexander, a senior sales representative of Charles Winn, and Charles Winn&#8217;s record managing member, Charlie Jake Smith, for allegedly raising at least <strong>$8.5 million <\/strong>through the fraudulent and unregistered offer and sale of purported fine wine investments to at least 121 investors, many of whom are elderly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the SEC&#8217;s complaint, between January 2018 and September 2021, Charles Winn, through Scott-Britten, Stewart, and Alexander, its sales representatives, and marketing materials, represented to investors that Charles Winn would buy investment-grade wines for the investors, later sell the wine at a profit, and would share in a portion of the profits with investors. As alleged in the complaint, using sales scripts provided by Scott-Britten and Stewart, Charles Winn&#8217;s sales representatives, including Alexander, falsely represented to investors that their money would solely be used to purchase and store wine, the wine could be expected to achieve a return ranging between 10% to 45%, and the company would not receive any compensation or profit until the wine was sold. The complaint further alleges that these statements were false because Charles Winn, through Scott-Britten, Stewart, and Smith, used no more than 43% of the investors&#8217; money for the purchase and storage of wine, made minimal payments to investors, and misused investor funds by spending them on a variety of non-wine uses, including at least $1.7 million for payments to individuals, including up-front commissions to Charles Winn sales representatives, payments to back office staff, and payments to Scott-Britten, Stewart, and their family members or affiliated entities, and Smith. As alleged in the complaint, Scott-Britten and Stewart orchestrated the fraudulent scheme, and Alexander and Smith participated in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEC&#8217;s complaint, filed in the Central District of California, alleges that Charles Winn, Scott-Britten, Stewart, and Alexander violated Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, that Alexander also violated Section 15(a)(1) of the Exchange Act, and that Smith violated Sections 5(a), 5(c), 17(a)(2), and 17(a)(3) of the Securities Act. The complaint also charges Scott-Britten and Stewart as control persons under Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act. It also seeks injunctive relief, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, and civil penalties from Charles Winn, Scott-Britten, Stewart, Alexander and Smith, and a prohibition on Scott-Britten and Stewart serving as the officer or director of a public company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against Charles Winn LLC, its senior managers, Aaron David Scott-Britten (aka Aaron David, Aaron Scott, and Aaron David K. Britten) and Ohran Emmanuel Stewart (aka Elliott Stewart), Casey Alexander, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048,16047],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84548","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\/84548","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=84548"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84550,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84548\/revisions\/84550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}