{"id":8489,"date":"2008-08-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T04:00:00","slug":"head-of-hedge-fund-real-estate-sham-pays-the-price","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/08\/2008\/head-of-hedge-fund-real-estate-sham-pays-the-price.html","title":{"rendered":"Head of Hedge Fund Real Estate Sham Pays the Price"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">New York (HedgeCo.Net) &#8211; A published author and notable hedge fund manager has seen his charade finally come to a halt.&nbsp; Mark Boucher of Portola Valley, California, who wrote &ldquo;The Hedge Fund Edge,&rdquo; has agreed to pay $100,000 in penalties after misleading investors in a $20 million real estate scam.&nbsp; In addition to the monetary penalties, he is barred from acting as an investment advisor for the next five years.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">According to reports by the SEC, Boucher pushed two investments supposedly backed by real estate onto his investors via his monthly newsletter, garnering around $20 million from 1999 to 2005.&nbsp; The two companies, however, had little to do with the real estate sector.&nbsp; One company had no property in its portfolio, while the other company owned a single property that was mired in debt.&nbsp; Neither firm was known for successfully developing any real estate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The money was apparently going to Gary P. Johnson and John Brake, owners of the two companies.&nbsp; The pool of investor money afforded the three men their own home mortgages, luxury cars and start up capital for other business ventures.&nbsp; Johnson agreed to return $1.8 million from commissions he received, as well as pay over $820,000 in penalties and interest, all while denying the allegations brought against him.&nbsp; Brake, who has also been accused of securities fraud, has not reached a settlement yet with the SEC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&quot;Boucher lured clients into these fraudulent real estate deals by exploiting his reputation as a successful hedge fund manager,&quot; stated Marc Fagel, Director of the SEC&#8217;s San Francisco regional office. &quot;Johnson and Brake failed to develop the projects, instead diverting millions of dollars of investor money to finance their lavish lifestyles.&quot;&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">An editorial review of his book states, &ldquo;The Hedge Fund Edge melds market timing, vehicle selection, risk management techniques, economic insight and understanding, and tactical asset allocation into a totally new philosophy and approach that has been proven to produce spectacular gains with relatively low risk.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Clearly, that formula needs to be reworked.<\/p>\n<p>Julie Scuderi<br \/>Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net<br \/>Email: julie@hedgeco.net <\/p>\n<p>HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!<br \/>Be sure to check out our sister sites. For more information, visit www.hedgeconetworks.com<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York (HedgeCo.Net) &#8211; A published author and notable hedge fund manager has seen his charade finally come to a halt.&nbsp; Mark Boucher of Portola Valley, California, who wrote &ldquo;The Hedge Fund Edge,&rdquo; has agreed to pay $100,000 in penalties [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3],"tags":[1047,110,2396,1167,2101,2395,266],"class_list":["post-8489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedge-fund-fraud","category-hedgeco-news","tag-barclays-bank","tag-due-diligence-service","tag-house-renovations","tag-infrastructure-assets","tag-international-equity-markets","tag-mathur","tag-sun-sentinel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8489","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}