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Bluestein Ponzi

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Detroit-area stock broker Frank Bluestein with fraud, alleging that he lured elderly investors into refinancing the mortgages on their homes in order to fund their investments in a $250 million Ponzi scheme.

The SEC alleges that Bluestein acted as the single largest salesperson in the Ponzi scheme operated by Edward May and his company, E-M Management Company LLC (E-M).

The SEC previously filed charges against May and E-M in connection with the fraudulent scheme.

The SEC alleges that Bluestein specifically targeted potential investors who were retired or elderly and conducted so-called "investment seminars" in Michigan and California to lure them into investing in E-M securities.

The SEC's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleges that Bluestein facilitated May's fraudulent scheme by raising approximately $74 million from more than 800 investors through the sale of E-M securities over a five-year period.

Bluestein, through his company Maximum Financial, conducted numerous investment seminars to find new E-M investors.

According to the SEC's complaint, Bluestein was very methodical and careful not to discuss the E-M offerings openly during these "seminars" in a way that would alert attendees to the fact that they were actually forums to pitch the E-M offerings.

Bluestein first gained the trust of potential investors in attendance by discussing generic financial planning topics and other investment products.

But under the guise of informal conversations, Bluestein would generate talks among attendees who already had invested in E-M offerings.

For instance, Bluestein would often ask if they had "received their Ed May checks?" or "How do you like those Ed Mays?" in order to drum up discussion of the investments and attract the interest of other potential investors attending the seminars.

The SEC's complaint alleges that Bluestein misrepresented to investors that the investments were low-risk and that he had conducted adequate due diligence with respect to the investments when, in fact, he did little to investigate the legitimacy of the E-M offerings even when confronted with serious red flags about the existence of some transactions.

Bluestein also misled investors about the compensation he was receiving from the offerings by failing to disclose that he received at least $2.4 million in commissions from May and E-M in addition to the $1.4 million in disclosed compensation he received from investor funds.

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• Madoff investigator goes after the family (guardian.co.uk)

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on September 28, 2009 (boomark / email).