Gregg Amerman, an investor who the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused of moving funds into a $13.5 million Ponzi scheme, has requested that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reverse the trial court’s summary judgment for the CFTC, asserting that he was not a commodity pool officer and had no knowledge of the colossal fraud. Specifically, Amerman stated that he was not aware that Coyt Murray, CEO of Tech Traders Inc., was running a Ponzi scheme when Amerman recruited his friends to the business and gave some of his own money to the company. Amerman further claims that the summary judgment was grounded on the incorrect assumption that he knowingly engaged in the scheme.

Amerman’s attorney stated, “The CFTC does not have any evidence that Amerman knew about the trading activities of Murray and Tech Traders or that Amerman created Tech Traders business summary, the investment summary, or any documents dealing with futures trading.”

Tech Traders, which was known as a super-fund, was shut down subsequent to a fraud suit brought by the CFTC against it in 2004. In that case, Murray and Tech Traders allegedly defrauded investors by misappropriating cash and misrepresenting how Tech Traders was performing.

The CFTC filed its complaint against Amerman in 2007, claiming that he solicited more than $1,169,000 from roughly twenty-two people and combined their investments into a commodity pool named Dream Venture Group LLC. Allegedly, Amerman subsequently invested that money in Tech Traders, which agreed to pay Amerman a broker’s fee based on profits from trading the funds. The CFTC claims that after Tech Traders shut down, Dream Venture investors lost more than $800,000 and Amerman kept $810,000 for himself.

If you or someone you know has lost money as a result of an investment or Ponzi scheme, please contact Richard Frankowski at 888-741-7503 to discuss your potential legal remedies or complete the contact form.