Post by ukipa on Oct 23, 2013 17:53:03 GMT 4
The two owners of a Clermont-based company and a phony lawyer acting as a purported escrow agent were accused Friday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of operating a fraudulent prime-bank offering and Ponzi scheme that raised at least $25 million from investors through false representations and fake documents.
The SEC said Jenifer E. Hoffman of Clermont and John C. Boschert of Apopka misrepresented to investors that Assured Capital Consultants LLC would invest their money in an offshore-trading program managed by a confidential trade platform that would, in turn, invest in blocks of medium-term notes. It said that, starting in about 2009, Hoffman and Boschert promised exorbitant profits, touting weekly returns to investors of as much as 50 percent.
Investors were told that Bryan T. Zuzga of Coldwater, Mich., controlled the escrow account as Assured Capital's escrow agent and that he was a licensed lawyer, the SEC stated.
According to the SEC, none of the representations was true; the investment program was purely fictional. Zuzga was not the company's escrow agent and has never been a licensed lawyer. Hoffman and Boschert used some of the investors' money to make payments to previous investors expecting promised returns — the classic definition of a Ponzi scheme — and stole some for personal use.
Assured Capital has since gone out of business.
"Hoffman and Boschert ensnared investors with an arsenal of lies and bogus documents, and Zuzga pretended to be the trusted lawyer to add a false sense of credibility to their scheme," said Eric I. Bustillo, director of the SEC's Miami Regional Office. "What was pitched to investors as a lucrative, successful, and safe investment opportunity turned out to be nothing more than a textbook prime bank and Ponzi scheme."
The SEC's complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.